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I attended the Chronotrack Conference in January each year as part of my timing business. In 2019, the conference was in New Orleans.
Many running industry conferences are held on weekends, which would eat into revenue-generating work days. Chronotrack started their four-day conferences on Sunday evenings in most timers’ off-seasons.
In 2017, I registered for this race and drove to Jackson, Mississippi, without a conference connection. That year, snow and ice started falling before I reached Birmingham, Alabama. By the time I reached Jackson, the roads were slick but drivable. For packet pickup, I parked across the street from the convention center and walked and slid across the road. That road was the first 200 meters of the race and was covered in thick ice. On race morning, it would be shaded by the building.
The 2017 packet pickup closed at 9 pm, and they canceled the race at 9:05 pm.
The following day, I walked onto the hotel parking lot at the scheduled race start time and slid downhill. The temperature was not supposed to be above freezing until 10 am. The earliest they could have started was noon. But with sunset at 5 pm, there would only be 5 hours of daylight, which is not enough for the modern marathon.
The following morning, there was a marathon in Mobile, Alabama. I left the hotel at 11 am. Five miles out of town, the roads were clear and showed no signs of snow or ice.
Back to the 2019 race.
Jackson is a two-hour drive from New Orleans. The marathon was on the Saturday morning before the 2019 Chronotrack Conference, so I took advantage of the schedule to extend my marathon or longer finish streak to 27 years and finish a marathon in Mississippi.
I arrived in Jackson late on Thursday and had time on Friday morning for a nice little run, stretching, and not having to be rushed at packet pickup. I was warned on web postings about the rough roads and hills on the marathon course. The race organizers published a 400-foot elevation gain. On the short run I did that morning, I was able to gain a little experience with the potholes and rough pavement that I might encounter.
At packet pickup, I encountered another first, “dynamic bib assignment.” In my past races, I was assigned a bib number and needed to pick up that specific number at packet pickup. With dynamic bib assignment, the volunteer typed my name into a tablet, pulled the next number from the stack, and indicated it was my number. With good computer access, this is a very efficient method. Being early at packet pickup, I was assigned bib #57. A downside from packet pickup was that the quarter zip shirts for marathon runners had not arrived, and I was told I could either come back at 5:30 pm or pick up my shirt after the race on Saturday. I chose the latter.
The race started at 7 am on Saturday. At 6:20 am, I left my hotel for the 1 ½ mile walk to the race start. Early morning temps were supposed to be around freezing, rising to the mid-50s with sun by noon. The actual temp was 37 degrees. That day was going to be another shorts day to run. I decided on compression shorts, a long-sleeve coolmax over my red FARC singlet, ball cap, buff, and gloves.
The event included four distance races, all starting at the same time in the same direction: marathon, half-marathon, quarter-marathon, and 5km. There were about 2000 runners in total. I started about 100 feet behind the start line, just in front of the 4-hour pace group sign.
The first mile was a slow 11:00. It probably took 30 seconds to get across the start line, passing walkers and concentrating on not stepping in a pothole, a joint crack, or a rough road surface. After the crowd thinned, concentrating on foot plant locations was easier. I thought about this run as if I were running on a single-track trail.
I got to the half marathon split around 2:20, with only marathon runners after about 7 miles. There were 332 marathon finishers, and I was never at a spot in the course where I could not see somebody in front of me. I do not think all the mile markers were in the correct location, as my mile splits were inconsistent, ranging from 9:16 to 11:31 in the first 13 miles. Even with the rolling hills, my pace does not fluctuate that much.
Going into the race, I planned to walk for 2 minutes at every water stop, which I expected to be every 2 miles. The first water stop was at 2.5, the second at 5.0, the third at 9.5, and the next at 12. At mile 8, I changed my plan to walk for 2 minutes every mile, as temperatures were warming and water availability was uncertain. After mile 12, there was water and Gatorade every 2 miles.
I never hit a wall, with my slowest miles in the 11-minute range, and finished the last half in 2:28 for 4:48:50. The roads were rough, even in the sections of town with the palatial mansions. There were many small hills, and only one in the 23rd mile of any length. My plan changed to walk the ups and run everything else by then. I would estimate the elevation gain to be about 1000 feet. I noticed the course did not follow the 2018 USATF certification map, which might explain the mile discrepancies, with different people placing mile markers with varying maps. I hope we ran an entire 26.2-mile course.
The 4:48:50 was my fastest marathon time since 2015. So, I’m happy with my 68th marathon finish in my 35th state. Post-race, I picked up my quarter zip and walked the 1 ½ mile back to my hotel.
The next day, I headed off to New Orleans for the Chronotrack Timers conference. Part of the conference was a 5km run to help test new equipment concepts. With a two-day rest, I ran 26:56 on a flat course in Audubon Park.
