Knoxville Marathon Race Report and Videos

2 weeks notice.....

If you remember my blog post from a few weeks ago regarding the new runDisney events for 2014, you will recall my excitement. I blame that excitement and status update from Eddie McCoy for signing up for the Knoxville Marathon 2 weeks before race day. Eddie put up as his status “Knoxville Marathon April 7th , Hmmm…… “. I took a look at that and thought the same thing. I figured airfare would be crazy, it wasn’t. I figured we wouldn’t be able to get a reasonably priced hotel room. The host hotel was still available and it was very reasonable. I figured Dave would never go for it. He did. So I signed up for the marathon. It was crazy, but I would get another state out of the way and we would get to spend the weekend with great friends.

You already heard about the fun of the weekend so far (post 1 and post 2), but now it’s time for the race. The host hotel was great, right at the start line. We walked out of the hotel and right into our corrals. The weather was perfect. Nice and cool and it never did get too warm. Eddie and I were doing the full and Anna was doing the half. We were all going to run together. I did take a look at the course map and elevation and noticed it looked quite hilly. That was an understatement. The course started off with a big hill right from the start and that was a sign of things to come. We were all having fun and the course took you through some beautiful areas of Knoxville. There were lots of nice neighborhoods with great spectators and live music. I was feeling ok but knew the hills were taking a beating on my legs.

The funniest moment of the race was when we got to a Starbucks and Anna had to stop and get something. It was at mile 11 so she was almost done and really enjoyed that Starbucks! In fact she was so happy that we almost convinced her to join us for the full. But she was smarter than that and turned off at mile 12.5 and left us behind.

After the split for the half it got pretty lonely out there, but there were still bands and spectators on the course. I told Eddie I wouldn’t start whining about the hills until mile 20. Unfortunately by the time we got to mile 20 I was too tired to whine. This is one tough course. I was glad that Eddie was keeping me company. We found a beer stop at mile 23. It was of course awesome! We ran into a first time marathoner towards the end and it was great to see her finish her first marathon. The course finished inside the University of Tennessee’s Football stadium. It was very cool to run into the stadium and finish on the field. We were given a nice medal and a finishers hat. They also had excellent finishers food. Rita’s Italian Ice! It was a great race and I’m pretty happy with the 5:50 time considering how hilly the course was. I would definitely recommend this race to anyone, but beware of the hills. I was extremely sore for a few days after.

We have 3 videos posted from the race. The first video is our race video which Dave mostly filmed while following the course. Next is the video Eddie filmed while on the course. The third video is the entire 2 miles Eddie wore Dave's GoPro on his head. It's sped up so you don't have to sit through it real time. After the videos we have some comments from Dave.

Dave's Comments

This was a super easy course for the spectator.  The roads were open to car traffic with the exception of a couple of miles.   I saw the crew at the start, mile 2.5, 3.5, a drive-by at 4, 8 (snack time), 12, 13.5, 14.5, 14.9, drive-by at 15.5, 19, drive-by at 19.5, 20, 23, and the finish.  I wish I was more familiar with the city so I could have maybe watched in a cooler location vs. the run-down neighborhoods I always end up watching from.  it was nice to get to see some of the live acts along the course - there were some really good singers out there.  After the race we hit the nearest microbrewery - Downtown Grill and Brewery.  Great food, generic beer.