DAYS OF GRACE: Knoxville Covenant Health Half Marathon

I had always wanted to run the Middle Tennessee Half Marathon, which is a newer race that is held in Murfreesboro each October. It starts and ends on MTSU's campus and goes all around campus, up and down Main Street, passes the geographic center of the state, and goes by a lot of places and landmarks I was familiar with when I was at MTSU. I registered for last Fall 2012 and trained for it, but ended up getting sick a few days before the race and couldn't run it. To say I was disappointed was a huge understatement, but since I had done all the training, I still wanted to keep it up and try and do another race.

Another one that I had always thought would be fun to do is the Covenant Health Half Marathon in Knoxville, which is held in April each year. It starts in downtown Knoxville at the World's Fair Park, goes all through the UT Knoxville campus and around downtown, along the Sequoyah Hills Dogwood Trail, and ends on the 50 yard line in Neyland Stadium. So, that became Plan B. The training was a little harder with the winter weather, so I did a large portion of it on the treadmill at the YMCA. By the time race day came on April 7th, the weather was perfect though, and it was a great race and experience.

Heading to the Expo on Saturday evening to get my race packet.

Since Collin and Meagan live in Knoxville, we hung out with them on
Saturday evening, went out to dinner, and spent the night at their house.

Anthony had lots of fun playing with Gracie.

It's usually tradition for David to take a picture of me before every race I run. Meagan
was the only one up when I was getting ready, so she offered to take this one for me.

Heading to the start line. It was such a gorgeous day with a beautiful sunrise
as I drove towards downtown that morning - perfect day for a half marathon!

The start line was right next to the Sunsphere.

The first portion of the race went from World's Fair Park to the UT campus, and this was one of my favorite parts of the race since I was most familiar with it. I loved being on campus and running past all my favorite places - the Hill, Neyland Stadium, the student center, the library, the torch bearer, the Rock. Of course, the pep band was out playing "Rocky Top" at one point so that was lots of fun.

From there the race went along Neyland Drive by the Tennessee River and then onto Kingston Pike. The next portion was through Seqouyah Hills along the Dogwood Trail. It was just a little too early for them to be in bloom, but the houses and landscaping and scenery was still pretty and a fun part to run through, especially with residents being out cheering and having signs in their yards.

Next up the route headed back to Kingston Pike and got on the Greenway headed back into downtown towards the strip. A couple of miles were along the Greenway, and that's where it got a little tough. For me, I love a greenway trail, but it's tough when there's not a lot to look at going by and in this case, I struggled keeping up with distances and knowing milemarkers. I had my stopwatch going and MapMyRun going, but still. The Greenway was still open to the public even during the race, and one woman named Janie was riding her bicycle along the route alongside runners and encouraging them. She came up beside me at one point, and we had a nice long conversation. She was such a nice lady and again, very encouraging, and helped me take my mind off of the running through that portion.

Once we finally got to Tyson Park and headed back towards the strip, I was feeling it, which was about Mile 10. Some of the worst hills were in this portion, which is over by where we park when we go to the football games. I had walked this route so many times before and knew what I was up against. Unfortunately, once I got to the top of the worst hill, the route turned off Cumberland Avenue and headed up to the Children's Hospital, which was another awful hill! No doubt Miles 10 and 11 were the roughest, but once I finally got past that portion, I knew I could make it the last couple.

The last couple of miles wove through portions of downtown as we made our way towards Neyland Stadium. Which was where these two were waiting on me in the stands:

The finish line on the 50.

They moved a little closer right before I crossed.

I tried to upload the video David took of me crossing the finish line, but can't get it to work correctly. It was so neat to run in through the stadium and come out onto the field. They have a live camera feed of the finish line on the Jumbotron so you can see yourself on it as you cross. Unfortunately, where the sun was at and with the polarization, you couldn't really see it well. They had UT football players handing out the finisher's medals - how cool was that to have one of them put a medal around my neck? Unfortunately again, I was so caught up in the finish, getting through, and looking at the Jumbotron and for David and Anthony, that I didn't even notice what number jersey he had on and who he was!

My time was 3 hours, 8 minutes, 40 seconds, which was about ten minutes slower than my Country Music Half in Nashville in 2007. I attribute it to the six years that had passed, having had a baby, and the hills on this course. That was my only hesitation in doing this race because I knew the hills were bad in downtown Knoxville and along the route, but they were even worse than I had anticipated, particularly those near the end.