American Family Fitness Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon


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Richmond, Virginia
United States
Sports Backers
Total Time = 00m
Overall Rank = /
Age Group = 50-59
Age Group Rank = 74/
Pre-race routine:

Preface to my race day, for those who don't know me. I love this distance, it is one of my favorite distances to train for. Two years ago I was out for a prolonged injury. I am the poster child for why endurance athletes need to avoid taking quinalone antibiotics. Ten long months of physical therapy. The PT pretty much told me running was out of my future. Not in so many specific words, but in the way he interacted it was apparent he wanted me to find a new pastime. Hah, Miss Stubborn took the challenge and fought back.
Last year was all about doing 1 sprint, just to get back in the game.
This year has been vindication for me. I have worked towards this race preparation with a fierce passion while monitoring closely how my legs felt throughout the build. I looked at a lot of training plans. I wanted a long build to get used to the stress slowly with a lot of shorter runs in the beginning. Found the silver 20 week plan here and decided to give it a whrl. I did change a few weeks around, dropping a long run in a week when I had a sprint tri as well as a couple easy recovery runs after long days of traveling. My goal was to get to the start of this race healthy. If I could get to my PR pace that would be beyond awesome. Even close to my best at this venue would make me happy.
So here we are, it's race day. My pre race standard breakfast is a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter and banana. It just works for me so I don't plan on changing the routine. Drive up to Richmond and find parking.
Event warmup:

Walked up to the start area trying to find Jen who was running the 8K. Never did meet up pre race, but Kristen and I found each other and hung out trying to keep warm.
Run
  • 2h 07m 20s
  • 13.1 miles
  • 09m 43s  min/mile
Comments:

I signed up for a 2 hour pace group. Unfortunately the group was in the wave ahead of me and I never caught up to them. I was hungry before the start as the second bag of bagels I was going to eat from this morning had gotten completely molded. I had been looking for a convenience store pre race to grab something else to eat but couldn't find anything open at that hour of the morning. So about 20 minutes before the start I had a gu while in the corral.

Lined up in the front of the wave with the plan to hang on the heels of the 2 hour pace group. Never caught them, their wave went out about 3 minutes before mine and that was just enough of a lead to hold me back. I did see Bart Yasso from Runner's World while in the corral which was cool.

Most of the race I averaged 9:20 pace. Hit around 5 miles and we headed into Bryant Park. Nothing but up and down the hills for the next 4 miles. When we FINALLY got out of the park my HR was over 170 which is a whole lot higher than I have been running in training. Lungs on fire. My pace slowed through there.....in part from the hills and in part from equipment malfunction. The ipod went to slower music and it was hard to get from my pocket to reset it. I was also trying to get another gu out and had a hard time reading into my jersey pockets. Anyway, I hit the 10K at about 58 minutes which is slower than I had anticipated but I thought I might be able to make up the time after I got out of the hills.
I was heading out of Bryant Park as Kristen was headed in. Cheered each other on. Counting down the mile markers, planned on turning up the speed with about 5K to go.
Another malfunction with the ipod. I had finally fished it out of the pocket to change the music to faster tempo and the ear bud wire was twisted up in the race / fuel belts so it didn't go in the pocket again. Had to set it on the belt line and hope it would stay. Gloves came off and got tucked in the belt too.
Got to about 11 miles and the course started to turn all over the place. They changed the finish since I last ran this race. Mile 12 and I knew at 1:56 the sub 2 was definitely out of the window. Last mile or so was straight down a hard hill. My calves and feet were cramping big time. It was a pretty finish area on Brown Island, but really we finish going down this hard hill and have to walk back UP same hill to get to dry bags and parking?
What would you do differently?:

More hill work

Make sure the food I intend to eat for breakfast is still in edible condition prior to race morning!!
Post race
Warm down:

Walked down the rest of the hill. Find Jen, eat a little banana and another bagel. Walk to my car. Panic cause I can't find my car key and I don't know the combination lock (in my long sports bra pocket tucked there cause I was afraid that it might come out from the jersey pockets when I went in for the gu/ ipod.
Got coffee and waited for Kristen so we could do lunch at Cap Ali House.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Hills
Poor sleep
Not quite enough breakfast

Event comments:

I had booked a massage post race several months ago. Thankful I did. Crystal is an angel and gave me an extra 15 minutes on the legs.


Profile Album


Last updated: 2012-05-12 12:00 AM
Running
02:07:20 | 13.1 miles | 09m 43s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/
Overall: 0/
Performance: Good
most of my mile splits were 9:15-9:30, had solid up and down hills from mile 5 to 9 and thought I would DIE. HR was jacked to 170's in that section
Course: Starts downtown and winds all over the city.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Good
Mental exertion [1-5] 4
Physical exertion [1-5] 4
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Average
Race evaluation [1-5] 3