Half-Marathon PR!

A write up of the Little Miami Half Marathon yesterday!

The weather was perfect, and the course was about as flat as a board. Not only that it was shaded for 98% of the race. The biggest problem was the width of the path we were on. It was a blessing and a curse at the same time.

I was forced to go slow even when I wanted to go faster unless I wanted to grab them by the shoulders and chuck them in the river. Once the crowd thinned out, it was a bit easier to get through, but you had to time your passes and speed up, then settle back down into your pace.

It only then became a problem when the faster runners were coming back. You had to just about go single or double file, which meant even if you were going at a good comfortable pace, you were at the mercy of the person in front of you until the others passed. A couple times I had to slow my pace by almost :30 seconds because of this. Again, this could have been a blessing.

They ended up opening the path to bikes later on, so you had to watch them zoom on by you and tell YOU to get out of the way if someone didn't notice them.

Now for the bad parts of the race for me before we get to the good:

1.) Body Glid/Nip Guards....of all the things I set out, I didn't set these out. Thankfully the pain didn't bother me that much, until the shower. I had forgotten about them by then, and as soon as the water hit me, there was pain. I think I would have rather had a hammer to junk then to experience the searing pain of bloody nipples and warm water. I don't think it effected my race that much.

2.) The outside bone on the ankle kept slamming into the shoe. I've never had that happen, and it hurt like hell. I started to notice it about mile 8 but kept on without any problems. At mile 10 and 12 I had to flat out stop and rub it out a bit. The pain never went completely away, but it was tolerable. I'm not sure why it happened, I've run 15-16 miles in these shoes before and had zero issues.

That's it for the bad, now on to the good:

1.) Pacing: In the beginning when I was stuck in the group in the middle/back, it was difficult because I wanted to go faster. This was definitely a blessing in disguise I think. I started out with a 3 mile pace of 10:23, 10:08, and a 10:04. When it started to thin out I was able to settle into a good pace, and for the most part kept between 9:17 and 9:40.

2.) Water stations: I hit the first one, skipped the next two, and then hit the rest of them. I'm not sure if the gatorade helped, but the water did, and my pace didn't really suffer that much by walking the ones that I hit.

3.) Running and not walking: Except for the water stations, I didn't walk. My total time walking was probably 1-2 minutes of this race in order to drink the water/gatorade, and get back on track. Tack on another minute to stop and rub out the pain in my ankle and you looking at 3 minutes of my 2:09:06 time was walking/stopped.

4.) Gas in the tank: At the end of the race, miles 11, 12 and 13 the pace varied because I did have to stop due to the ball of the ankle pain. Miles 10-11 and 11-12 were 10:22, and 10:25 respectively. When I saw the sign that I had just hit the 12th mile I kicked it up a bit, but didn't go too crazy, and ran it in 9:23. When I was done I felt great. I felt like I could have continued on, and that's even after turning it up even more the last 10th just to get those extra seconds in. A guy that had already finished was a big motivation, he pulled up beside me and just kept saying "turn it up" "push" "harder" and had me almost sprinting that last bit.

5.) GPS not working well: My phone had me at a 9:36 mile and running 13.5 miles total....yeah that's not right. I just kept hearing GPS signal lost/gained, and I knew I couldn't trust it, or my watch really (though it turns out my watch was almost dead on). It just allowed me to settle in, and run, and not worry about the time. I was okay with that. When I hit the finish, the time was 2:10:23, I wasn't sure how far off my chip time would be from that total time. I was pretty confident that I had just hit a PR though, and waited for the results.

As said above...I did it! I beat it by 1:17. Can't ask for better than that. From pacing, to hydration, to how I felt at the end, I came as close to a perfect race for me that I could ask for. Here are my split times from my GPS watch (which had me going 13.15 miles, pretty damn close eh?)

10:22
10:08
10:03
09:39
09:48
09:41
09:35
10:03
09:17
09:33
10:21 <-- stopped because of ankle
10:25 <-- stopped because of ankle
09:22
01:25 < -- last .15 (according to my GPS) of the 1/2 marathon


Thanks for reading!!!