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September 19, 2005
Half Marathon Report
This has been a big racing weekend for the elite running bloggers. I just got finished reading several race reports, and I am so proud of everyone! Good job guys.
I thought I would add my race report now as well. I cannot say that I had a fantastic race yesterday, but you win some and lose some, and frankly with the small amount of training and speed work I have been doing I think this actually went pretty well.
So let me start out with the premise of this race as I do not know how clear I was in last week's fog of exhaustion that was my life. This was a half ironman triathlon race, and my friend M., her boyfriend S., and I did it as a relay. So M. did the 1.2 mile swim, S. did the 56 mile bike, and I was doing the 13.1 mile run. We had pretty high hopes as the fastest coed relay team last year was not that fast. The race was at the Aurora Resevoir which is not the nicest place in the world and seems to be almost in Kansas but that is not too big a deal. Additionally I ran a few cross country races there in high school and remembered those races as death marches - it is very hilly.
This race was pretty cool. It was very small (219 finishers) which was nice because parking at the resevoir is somewhat limited. And it made for a nice, mellow environment. We got there very early - I left my house around 5:35 to go to M.'s for my ride - so there was lots of time for me to hang out, read my book, warm up, stretch, cheer, and take pictures.
So here is how the race went. M. put on her wet suit (she is getting into doing tri's so she got the gear which is good because the water was COLD!) and went down to the start. She did the swim in about 40 minutes which was about what she expected. She did a great job and was about middle of the pack. She ran out of the water and tagged S., who took off on his bike. He is a very serious cyclist and completed the bike in about 2:15, which is around 25 miles an hour. In other words he KILLED it!! So we made up some time in the bike portion. By this time it was about 10:30 am and pretty warm. I ran up to S. and tagged him (he was tired so I did not think he could tag me) and then I took off.
The race starts through the transition area and then you basically go almost all the way around the resevoir, turn around, and come back. I started at 8:00 pace, then went faster for several miles, then returned to 8:00 pace, imploded at mile 11 and ran an 8:48 (yuck), and then picked it up at the end. My final time was 1:44 high, which brought us in at 4:39. We were the third coed team to finish and the 16th overall finisher. Which means that several people beat us and they did the entire thing themselves! Those people are crazy, and amazing all at the same time. The overall winner was a man in his 30s but the second place finisher was actually an all female team. It was really cool to watch them, they kicked butt! Go girl power.
Anyway I should say a few more things about my race. Overall I feel pretty good about it, although I wish I would not have had such a bad mile 11 split. That was about 90% mental and 10% physical. Luckily no other teams passed me at that time, but I still wish I would have run a little better. However I will say this in my defense: the race was hot (about 80 degrees), the course was very hilly, and on the way back there was a pretty strong headwind. All of which was annoying. I am still pleased with my time as my goal was 1:45 and I just barely beat it.
I can't wait to train this winter and run the same half marathon I ran last year, again. I would like to hit a 1:35 next year and I really think that with the proper training I could do it. At least at this point in my running career 10 mile races and half marathons seem to be my sweet spot - I can run those at a pace that is not far off from my 5k and 10k paces. So more than anything else this race has motivated me to train smarter for next year!
Today I will do a nice easy run at lunch time (I think it might involve picking up my car from M.'s house, which I didn't do yesterday since I was a tired little person), and then after work Matty and I will either run errands or go on a bike ride, or both. It should be a good day, even though it is Monday!
Posted by barb at September 19, 2005 09:16 AM
Comments
that is really hot. :) But good running on a challenging course and it's ALWAYS nice/wonderful to hit the goal time. I can't wait to see you train/taper for the half in the spring. 1:35 is wicked/very/impressively fast. would that be a PR for you? i would love to see you do it! I am glad you are so excited about your running!
Posted by: Audrey at September 19, 2005 02:19 PM
Good race! It sounds like it was hot. Personally, I would have trouble with being there and hanging out for so long, I'd be impatient to start and hungry!
I agree that 10 miles and half-marathons are a sweet distance! They're long enough to feel challenged and need some real training, but not so long that it takes a month or longer to recover.
Hope that your recovery goes well!
Blondie
Posted by: Blondie at September 19, 2005 06:31 PM