7 Bridges Marathon Chattanooga Race Report

Today I ran the 7 Bridges Marathon in Chattanooga. It turns out I ran my fastest marathon ever. I knew it was a recent years record but it turns out this was a PR. My time today was 4:31:28 (official chip time), my previous fastest was 4:34:23 in the 2005 Philly Marathon. I ran this marathon last year in 4:43:41.

Packet pickup: The shot above has the tent from the packet-pick up and the very first bridge we run over. Pickup was well organized. I was in and out in under a minute. The coolest thing is they had a sensor attached to a screen so you could see that the bar on the running bid number was working.  The x-large t-shirt fit. This is not always the case. Extra large for runners sometimes turns out to be just large size in real life.

Race start: I walked about 1.3 miles to the start from the hotel where my wife, kid and I stayed the night before. This was a worrying walk. My legs felt awful. I'm not sure what the issue was but it felt like I had run a marathon a day or two ago. Obviously, this turned out to be a non-issue.

The race start was a bit like last year in that I would say it was disorganized. It wasn't really a problem since it's a smaller (but not small) marathon.  They didn't start on time (about 15 minutes late) and had us line up on the wrong side of the start line at first. We all had to switch sides.  Improvements from last year: they had a starting gate and I heard the horn (or some noise maker) start the race.


Course: This is an amazing course. I really like it. The 7 bridges are fun to run over and break up the race. The last few miles are on the trail system next to the river. Chattanooga is a great outdoor town. Our 5 year old was sad to leave; he told the town on the way out he was going to miss it.  

There is a rather flat road section that goes on for a bit in the middle miles. However, I really liked the chance to just run in a grove for a few miles. It's not a flat course but I wouldn't say it was hilly either. It's in that sweet spot in-between where you can get some variations on your legs as you hammer them.

They could use some more course marking in the last few miles, paths split of the main path a few times and it wasn't fully clear which way to go. I knew from last year and someone ahead of me was from the area and said he knew the course well so it wasn't a problem for me. I can imagine a few likely took a wrong turn in this area.

There is a rather steep but short hill just as you come back into town. I was happy to power walk it as there was no way I would have run up it faster than that. 

Aid stations: Plenty and great and friendly people there to help us. Each one had water and a sports drink. A few (enough) had gels.

Pace: the plan going into this marathon was to keep an average pace of 10:30 per mile (about a 4:35 finish). This would allow me to beat my time from last year with some room to spare. I had said I was not going to run faster than a 10:20 per mile pace, since I have another marathon in about a month.

However, my natural pace today seemed to be hovering around 10:00 per mile during the first few miles. It seemed easier to go at that natural pace rather than slow down. I did actually slow down a few times on the flat road section as my pace was dropping into the 9:40 range. I was not going to go faster than 10; there was no I could hold a pace below it for the rest of the marathon.

I kept the 10 pace till around mile 19 at least (I was at an average of 10:03 per mile there).  I slowed a bit during the next 7 miles and ended with an overall pace of about 10:19 per mile.

Finish: The last half mile or so is down hill. Keeping with tradition I did not sprint at all. The savings of a few seconds are not worth the likely pain. I was way ahead time wise anyway. My wife and son where there to high-five me on the way in.

My 5 yr old thinks I won the race because I got the medal. I'll tell him later.

I hope to be back next year!