Hot Chocolate 15K Atlanta Race Recap

Background - The 2013 Edition

Last year, when I ran the Hot Chocolate 15k, I wanted to treat it as a tune-up for my second half-marathon, which was coming up in February, I thought a 9.3-mile race with 5 weeks to go would be a good barometer. Unfortunately, I had the flu for the last weeks in December 2012, so when January 13 rolled around, I wasn't up to the same fitness level I envisioned back when I registered. It was also a warmer day (63 F at the start), with 94% humidity. When you add the hills - because Downtown Atlanta - especially in the final 5k, I ended up running slower than intended, finishing at 1:23:12.  But I got a nice sweatshirt and some chocolate out of it, so I can't rightfully complain.
What I could complain about, though was traffic and parking. I thought we were arriving early to Turner Field, but if you're familiar with Atlanta, you know the exits to Turner Field are utterly inadequate to handle 17000+ runners driving to a race location. That meant we ended up cutting it very close to the start time of my wife's 5k.

It's a New Year and We Learned Some Lessons

Fast forward to this year, and this time my wife and I were both registered for the 15k, and we arrived with ample time to park. It was also markedly colder than last year, I think the temperature at the start was 33 F (0.5 C for our metric friends), but that's alright, it was a dry heat. We beat the cold by staying in the middle of the giant warm-up dancing party before the 5k. We were both excited and a little sleepy and here's some photographic evidence to prove my point.

After the 5k corrals all started, we moved in to our respective starting corrals, and then it was on

The Race

I tried to stick to a pace I thought I could maintain for the whole race, and was moderately successful. I hit the 5k split at 25:25, feeling strong. The 10k split came in at 50:55, so 5 seconds slower on the middle 5k, but still reasonably in range of being even.
Then the real race began. I remember distinctly from last year that starting around the 7 mile marker things would be more difficult, and so they were. I ended up taking a walk break outside of the water stations, and that brought the last 5k to a 25:50 split, for a finish time of 1:16:50. I was happy with that, as it was close to my goal time.
One would think that with all the hills on my normal running routes, I would not  have faded so much on those final hills. One would be wrong. On the other hand, I felt really good for the most part, and even managed a modest "kick" on the final 0.8 mile, running between my 10k goal pace and my actual 5k pace. And I managed to shave 6:22 on the same course.
With all that out of the way it was time to grab dry clothes at the gear check and eat some chocolate fondue, which I'm happy to report was really tasty. Sadly, I ran out of things to dip into that melted chocolate; I briefly considered dipping my phone in it, but then thought better, since it's not an Apple phone. Go ahead, groan.
So here's the secret to improving your pace by 39 seconds per mile: don't get the flu. That's right folks, that's the kind of insight you can't get anywhere else.
Hopefully I'll post again before the 5k next month, but I can't make any promises.

Until the next time.