Race Report - 2014 Bridge Street Town Centre Half Marathon

My favorite pic of my wife and I. No need to zoom in to see us both smiling war to ear:-)

The local inaugural Bridge Street Town Centre Half Marathon was part 2 of my weekend of running adventures. After running the SweetH2O 50K just outside Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, I had signed up for this half marathon to pace my wife to what hopefully would be a new PR for her. My body was a little stiff on race morning, especially my quads were shot, but I was hoping that I would be able to keep up with my wife once we started actually running. Thankfully, that's exactly what happened.

Close to 1600 runners had registered for this first time event, which shows a real desire of local runners for more and more local races, even longer distance events. There pretty much is a local 5K or 10K every weekend, but longer distance races are much harder to find. So I was glad to see another half marathon added to the local racing calendar. I had initially signed up right after the registration window opened, but by the time my wife started to consider running it, the race had already filled up to capacity. So I was glad when Suzanne Taylor reopened registration for an additional 90 spots, which were gone after just 30 minutes or so, but not until I grabbed a spot for my wife:-)

We arrived at the race start at the Bridge Street Town Centre about 30 minutes prior to race start. Parking was aplenty, so we just kinda roamed around and hung out in our car for a good 15 minutes prior to the start. Once we started lining up in near the starting line, we realized just how many runners were participating in this event. We decided to line up somewhere between the 2:15 ("cause there's no way I'm running a 2:15" my wife's exact words) and the 2:30 pace group.

The race start went off without a hitch and we got underway. I decided to stay next to my wife but just behind her to make sure she was setting the pace and really that's all I had to do all day. So much for her needing a pacer;-) I just made sure I stayed next to her keeping her entertained with my race blabber from the previous day.

After looping the Bridge Street Town Centre, we finally went onto one of the main research park roads to start our "big loop". What I really appreciated about this race course is the complete lack of monotony. There were plenty of turns and no single section stood out as being too long or boring. Quite the opposite, this race was a whole lotta fun! The miles kept ticking away and my wife continued to run really well. She kept a pretty steady pace and while some folks started walking late in the race, she kept pushing the pace, actually getting faster. As a result, we saw the 2:15 pace group coming into view just ahead of us with a little over half a mile to go to the finish. That's all it took for my wife to find another gear. 1 minute later, we had passed the 2:15 pace group and my wife was on her way to a new PR. As we made the final turn and approached the finish line I took a look at my watch. My wife had run a 15 minute PR in only her third half marathon ever and her first in almost 2 years and I got a nice Weekend back to back run in in the process.

Two hours after we got home, my wife was online looking for new races. Three hours later she had registered for her first trail race, a tough 25K in June. I think someone caught the racing bug:-)

Worthy of a Facebook profile picture update:-)