Savannah Women’s Half Marathon

Disclaimer: I received an entry to the Savannah Women’s Half Marathon to review as a part of being a Bibrave/Vibe Ambassador.

When I had the opportunity to run the Savannah Women’s Half Marathon as part of the Bibrave/now Vibe community (ie free race entry), I jumped at the chance. I had been to Savannah before, but only briefly, as a day trip from Hilton Head Island, and I always wanted to go back. This was my perfect opportunity. Plus, I hated the half marathon I ran as my half marathon for Georgia, the Run the Reagan Half Marathon, Georgia-14th state, so I viewed the Savannah Women’s Half as my redemption race for Georgia.

The Savannah Women’s Half Marathon and 5k was held April 6, 2024 and the expo was most of the day on April 5. In the emails before the race, it said we would receive a “gift” along with our packet pickup, so I was curious about what that would be. It was a nice black zippered bag that could be worn as a waist pack or small crossbody bag with the name of the race embroidered on it. I also liked the shirts but was disappointed to learn they had already run out of my size, even though there were still three hours left to go for the expo, so I had to get the next size up. I didn’t linger around, but there were vendors selling shirts, shoes, and the typical other vendors like a chiropractor and similar running-related vendors.

Race morning was a crisp 47 degrees at race start, 7:30, with some wind gusts but not awful. Runners self-seeded into various paces, such as sub-8 minute mile, 9-minute mile, 10-minute mile, etc. There were also pacers and I tried to stay near the 2 hour pacer. The announcer did a good job of slightly spacing out the runners at the start by waiting a bit after letting the sub-8 minute runners start and telling the next group to wait until she said go, and so forth for the other groups. The 5k and half marathon runners started together but the Girls on the Run 5k (the group this race supported) started after the rest of us.

The race course wound along the downtown area and went through two parks. I was warned about the cobblestones by a friend who had run this race before, but I didn’t find them difficult to run on at all, and they were only minimally on the course. I thought the entire race felt pancake flat. It was especially scenic with the tree-lined areas draped in Spanish moss.

There were plenty of porta pots and first aid stations throughout the course, likewise there was plenty of water and electrolytes on the course. Where appropriate, roads were closed and/or monitored by volunteers or police officers. The course truly did highlight the most scenic parts of Savannah and wound around a couple of parks and finished at famous Forsyth Park, going by the fountain first. 

Although I had been dealing with Achilles pain in the couple of weeks prior to the race, and fully expected the pain to start around mile 2 or 3, somehow, I managed to run the entire race with no Achilles pain. The weird thing about my Achilles problem is it had been sporadic, so I could run 2 miles one day before I was brought to a walk, and even that was painful, but on another day, I ran 8 miles with no pain at all. I couldn’t link the pain to shoes, hills, speed work, or anything else, so I never knew what to expect when I went out on a run.

Honestly, I found myself struggling mentally during this race, starting early on. I’m not sure why (actually I’m going to go through my theory about this in another post), but I just wasn’t in the right headspace for this race. Pretty much for the entire race, I had to keep up the positive talk, telling myself everything from “It’s ok if you have to drop out,” “Just see how long you can go,” “The faster you go, the sooner it will be over,” “Just keep moving forward,” and “Just f*ing keep going.”

Despite my negative attitude during the race, my mile splits were pretty consistent, hovering slightly under 9-minute miles for every mile except miles 9 and 10 (they were 9:02 and 9:04), which is where I often struggle during half marathons. My watch decided to shut off completely somewhere around mile 11.2, even though the battery was fully charged. This had happened during a training run so I wasn’t completely surprised. I had even thought about buying a new watch because I know mine is probably due to be replaced, but I didn’t. I was able to start my watch back, but I lost a couple of minutes and somewhere around 0.4 miles, so my Strava time looked like the course was short, when in reality, it was a bit long, or at least the way I ran, it was longer than 13.1 miles.

Still, I had no idea what my chip time was until I got the email with my unofficial finish time, which was lightning fast after I finished. My unofficial time turned out to be my official finish time, 1:57:54, seventh in my age group, with an average pace of 9:00. BTW, this is a fast course, with the top two women in my age group finishing in 1:45 and the first finisher’s time was 1:21:21. In case you’re wondering, the race was open to males as well, despite the name, and for 2024, there were 61 male finishers, compared to 1,131 females.

At the finish line, there were volunteers handing out medals that looked like the famous Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist in Savannah, bottles of water, and a clear plastic bag with fruit, a fruit and grain bar, a bottle of water, and chocolate milk. We had 2 tickets for beer on our race bib. The grassy area of the park was filled with runners and areas for runners like the VIP area, gear check, beer, and more, plus there was a band playing on a stage that was really good. It was a sunny day and many people were hanging out with friends chatting about the race.

This race truly is a beautiful, well-organized race that I highly recommend. Even though I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked, that had absolutely nothing to do with the race itself, but more what was going on inside my head. You can sign up for next year’s race or read about the logistics of the race here: https://www.savannahsportscouncil.com/our-events/savannah-womens-half/

Have you run the Savannah Women’s Half Marathon or want to run it? If so, please share your thoughts!

Happy running!

Donna