Week #14 - Day 3 (a half-marathon)

Today was a nice little warm-up for the Marathon which is now less than 13 days away. I got out of bed at 6:20am and headed down to Cuyahoga Falls for the Buckeye Half Marathon. They also had a 5K going on, but most people were there for the half-marathon, like myself. I went to bed early last night and had not run in two days, so I was well rested.

The announced turnout for the race was 500+, so the starting line was pretty crowded. I started about halfway back and it took about 20 seconds for me to actually pass the starting line after the race started. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were Pace Leaders, which was very helpful since I had forgotten my watch. During the first couple miles, I was hanging around the 1:45 pace guy, but then lost sight of him during the 3rd mile. And then during mile 4, the 1:50 pace guy came by and I decided that I would try to stick with him the rest of the race.

The course was all roads which had semi-restricted traffic. We stayed left-of-center on the street and the occasional cars would pass by, going either way...some drivers being nice and slow and moved over, and others allowing for the bare minimum clearence and not slowing down. So that was pretty annoying. But the most annoying part of the race was the run/walk guy that was part of our little pace group. At about the halfway point (6 miles), the runners were pretty spread out and there were about 10-15 people that were part of our little group at that point. That included a guy who would run and then walk a little bit. So I would pass this guy, and then a few minutes (or even a few seconds) later, he would blaze back past me, only to walk and fall back a few minutes later. There was no one passing me and I was still passing the occasional person, and I know it might sound silly but it was super-annoying to have this little cat-and-mouse game with this guy.

Anyways, the course was pretty rolling with it's up and downs. I enjoyed the down parts, and struggled through some of the up parts. Around mile 10, I started falling back from the pace group (which itself was shrinking). I really began questioning whether it was really smart of me to try to keep up or fall back to a more "comfortable" pace. But I kept up as best as I could, gaining ground on the downhill parts. When we hit mile 12 and I was about 30 seconds behind the pace group, I decided it was now or never. I hung back for most of the mile, and struggled to make it up one last hill. But on the downhill, I kicked it in a little bit and passed the pace group at about 12.9 miles. I had a great kick and passed a bunch of people that last quarter mile as I sprinted towards the finish. I ended up crossing the line at 1:49:45 (8:22 mile pace). The preliminary results they posted at the finish showed me finishing #169 (out of 500+). I'll link the results later when they get posted.

I was pretty excited about this. Looking back to my first race, that 10K not even 3 months ago, I'm very encouraged by being able to cut 1:26 off my pace today from that much shorter race. The marathon training has had it's ups and its downs, and I'm a little disappointed that I haven't been as disciplined recently as I was when I first started. But it's very encouraging to see the results like this. I'm a little sore, but nothing crazy. I was pretty wiped out at the end of the race, so it's very obvious that my marathon pace is going to be quite a bit slower. But I think today's results were enough to satisfy my need to have a "good race time", so the pressure I've been putting on myself for the marathon is a little lighter.