The National Flag Football League of Atlanta kicked off its spring season on March 29. Six teams took part in three games at Central Park in Midtown. Results include the Broncos over the ’71 Clippers 19-0, Wildcats beating the Raiders 19-13 and the Pirates defeating the Rams 20-6. The season continues on Saturdays through June.
It rained a little and it was chilly. But that didn’t slow three gay runners who took part in the ING Georgia Marathon & Half Marathon on March 30.
Combined, they ran nearly 40 miles through the streets of Atlanta in about seven hours, pursuing personal goals along the way in the half marathon.
They were among the more than 14,000 entrants for the second running of the race, though just 10,793 started — 2,444 marathoners and 8,349 half marathoners. But they weren’t among the 82 runners who didn’t finish. And while their times weren’t near the one hour and some change mark of the top finishers for the 13.1-mile event — in fact, their finishes ranged from placing 1,545 to 7,550 — they bested their own goals.
“My dream time was to beat three hours,” said Michelle Martin, who finished the half marathon with a time of 2:54:25. “I was so happy with that.”
The event marked the first half marathon for the 58-year-old Decatur resident, an accomplished swimmer with the Atlanta Rainbow Trout. The ING was a step up from the 10K runs to which she’s more accustomed. Later this summer, she’s taking part in a triathlon in Acworth.
“This is a pretty long way for me to run. I had a really good training regiment,” she said.
Andy Wilson approached the half marathon as a step in his training for a triathlon later this month in Fort Lauderdale. Wilson, 34, ran the full marathon during the ING last year.
“This a pretty rigorous course,” Wilson said. “The starting and ending in Centennial Olympic Park was certainly inspirational.”
The triathlon this month will be Wilson’s first. With the half marathon behind, he’s focused on ramping up his training to include consecutive sessions with all three aspects of the next event – biking, cycling and running.
“I have three weekends to really focus on putting the three sports together,” he said. “If the weather is favorable, that will be a big help.”
With running his strongest of the three sports — he finished the half marathon in 1:52:48 — Wilson said he’s most concerned about swimming in the open waters of the ocean, rather than the relatively safer confines of a gym pool.
“The idea of entering into the water with hundreds of people and then if something happens, you have to figure out how to fix that without taking a break. If there is a mishap, it is more easily corrected if you are not in the middle of the ocean,” he said.
The ING event came just two weeks after a tornado ripped through portions of Downtown Atlanta and damaged buildings along portions of the route for the run. Concern about falling glass from the damaged windows of the Omni Hotel prompted race organizers to move the course and create a zig-zag final stretch on a narrow path in Centennial Park, which was also damaged during the tornado.
Some runners appreciated the narrow end, which put the runner and crowd closer together. But the pinch left other participants, such as Mike Spencer, wondering if that was the best solution.
“The ending was confusing,” said Spencer, 60, an experienced runner who completed the half marathon with a time of 2:02:51.
He shaved 10 minutes from his time in the 2007 event, though just missing his goal of finishing the race this year in under two hours. Spencer, an official with Front Runners Atlanta, ran his first marathon as part of Gay Games I, the historic event in San Francisco in 1982. Since, he’s fun four more full marathons, a handful of 13.1-mile events and several other smaller events. Next up for him is the Peachtree Road Race in early July.
“I didn’t wake up Sunday morning at 5:15 a.m. thinking why am I going to do this,” he said. “That meant I was having fun and wasn’t questioning what I was doing.”
Matt Hennie blogs on Atlanta’s gay sports scene at www.gaytlsports.com.
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