I picked a 12 week training program (Hal Higdon's Novice 1) and started training the last week of February. I only missed one training run the entire 12 weeks to give my knees a rest about week 9 and a couple cross training days. I am so glad that I put the training in because it really made the race a great experience, I felt confident and prepared on race day! The training program called for an increasingly long run each Sunday, which I actually started looking forward to because I had two great training buddies to run with. All the talking and pushing each other during those long runs really helped me feel ready for the half. My training really went great and it was fun to see my time improve on my shorter runs each week, so towards the end of my training I began to think that I would really like to try to do the half in under 2 hours.
My fastest time for each distance during training:
2 miles :: 16:17 -3/21/12
3 miles :: 26:14 - 4/25/12
5k :: 24:58 - 5/16/12
4 miles :: 35:15 - 3/27/12
5 miles :: 45:57 - 5/1/12
10k :: 53:37 - 4/29/12
10 miles (the longest of my training runs) :: 1:38:00 5/14/12
A few days before the race I tried to drink lots of extra water. Two days before we went out for a spaghetti dinner - I am glad that this was not the night before the race! My pre-race dinner was Southwestern Quinoa (without the mushrooms). Then I laid out everything I needed the next day, made my running play list on my ipod shuffle, set the coffee to brew in the morning, and tried to go to bed early (ha, i had trouble falling asleep :)).
Race morning: I woke at 4am and started the coffee, dressed in the clothes I laid out and luckily remembered to pin on my bib, which I meant to do the night before. Then I made a whole wheat bagel topped with honey and peanut butter. I grabbed my gear, bagel, banana and coffee and planned to eat in the car. I also drank a little Powerade on the way to the race. We parked around 5 and walked over to the race with most of the other twin moms that were racing. I decided to just wear shorts and a t-shirt and was pleased with that decision, my hands were cold for the first two miles, but after that it was a perfect day to run - high 40s/low 50s and the sun was out. I do wish I had brought I small bottle of water to the start line, because I took a gel right before the race started and had nothing to wash it down with. I also wish the race had provided port-o-potties near the start so that I could have gone one more time before race start.
During the race they provided water at every even mile. I took Gatorade from two of the stations and water from all the rest except mile 12. At most stations I grabbed two cups and tried to get as much down as I could. Since the weather was so temperate and I was already well hydrated, I probably did not need to drink this much during the race and wish that I had not had so much! I also took my gel right before the station at mile 8 so I could wash it down.
When I signed up I estimated my finish time to be about 2:10:00 so I ended up passing a lot of people the entire race, which I think helped motivate me to keep going faster, it felt so good to get past another person! I feel like my first mile time was slower than the others merely because I was having to veer around people constantly or was held up by the people in front of me, after the first mile we got out on the road and it was a lot easier to run in a straight line! With my 2 hour goal in mind my plan was to try to stay at or under a 9:15 minute mile, so I was happy with my first mile coming in at 9:00 exactly (see all of my splits below). But the next mile was faster and the next faster still, I began to worry that I wouldn't be able to keep it up the whole race at that fast of a pace, but I felt so good and light on my feet that I just decided to keep going until I had to slow down - turns out I never had to slow down! Miles 4-10 I felt good but was holding back a little because I was still worried about burning out. Mile 11 I felt awesome and was passing people left and right, I sped up again on mile 12 and still felt great! At the start of mile 13 I started to get pretty winded, but then I spotted a bubble gum pink shirt of Melissa, one of the other twin moms from our running group. I decided to sprint up and catch her and finish the race with her, but by the time I caught her I was going so fast and there was only a half mile left I decided to keep booking it to the finish. I crossed the 13 mile marker and was completely worn, but the finish line was in sight so I drug myself to it. I could not believe my finish time of 1:52:41. The whole thing completely blew all my expectations out of the water! It felt so good to finish and finish fast (very fast for me - the last 3.1 miles was equal to or slightly faster than my fastest 5k time and my last mile is my PR for a mile!)
Split
|
Time
|
Distance
|
Avg Pace
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Summary | 1:52:40.7 | 13.23 | 8:31 |
| 1 | 9:00.7 | 1.00 | 9:01 |
| 2 | 8:47.6 | 1.00 | 8:48 |
| 3 | 8:40.4 | 1.00 | 8:40 |
| 4 | 8:55.4 | 1.00 | 8:56 |
| 5 | 8:28.6 | 1.00 | 8:29 |
| 6 | 8:40.4 | 1.00 | 8:40 |
| 7 | 8:33.9 | 1.00 | 8:34 |
| 8 | 8:25.7 | 1.00 | 8:26 |
| 9 | 8:42.2 | 1.00 | 8:42 |
| 10 | 8:33.2 | 1.00 | 8:33 |
| 11 | 8:05.7 | 1.00 | 8:06 |
| 12 | 8:02.1 | 1.00 | 8:02 |
| 13 | 7:49.6 | 1.00 | 7:50 |
| 14 | 1:55.3 | 0.23 | 8:28 |
After the race I got my finisher medal and they handed me a bottle of water - i couldn't open it I was so shaky so I had to ask one of the race volunteers to do it for me. Then I ate half a banana and half a blueberry bagel. Then I walked down to watch for the rest of my group to finish. I tried to stretch a little and should have done more. My knees hurt so bad that I was afraid if I sat down I wouldn't be able to get back up so I tried to keep moving. Since I got home I have been hitting ibuprofen for my aching knees and general soreness and tried to keep my feet up the rest of race day (hard to do with 3 kids under 3!). On day 2 of recovery here my knees don't hurt nearly as bad but my whole body is full of sore muscles. All in all I feel like I am recovering fairly well and I am thankful for not getting blisters on race day, which I know is pretty common.
I am already signed up for my next half marathon - the Denver Rock N' Roll on 9/22/12. Not sure what my goal will be for that one, but I am really excited to see what this body of mine can do after another 12 weeks of training!
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