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Comments: My goal was to run a sub 1:40 half. I did it, but with a much smaller margin that I expected. With a temp. of 26 degrees at race start, sunny conditions and no wind, conditions were ideal for laying down a fast time. I lined up in corral 2 with the 6:31-7:30/mi. pace group, hoping to hang between the back of this group and the front of the group in corral 3 (7:31-8:10/mi.) with 2 minute intervals between corral starts. My race strategy was to break the half into a 10 mile run and a 5k run, running the first 10 miles right at my lactate threshold heart rate of 163 bpm and to close hard on the last 5k @ 95-100% max HR. The course elevation was predominantly uphill for the first 10 miles, running away from the river and downhill, returning to the river front, for the last 3 mi. - a good scenario for a negative split performance - my fastest split in the race was mile 12 @ 6:55/mi. I was very pleased to run a negative split race and to score a PR. My last half PR was a 1:41:14 from the 2004 Germantown Half. What would you do differently?: I would have started in corral 3 rather than 2 and run the first mile a little slower (10-15 sec.) than goal race pace.  Post race
Warm down: I walked to the runners food and beverage area, ate a couple of macadamia nut cookies, a banana and drank some chocolate milk. What limited your ability to perform faster: An inflamed piriformis on the right side that I started feeling a couple of weeks before the half caused me to miss a few pace interval workouts during training. Event comments: This half goes down as one of my best race efforts in several years from training plan to race day execution. I felt like all the chips fell into on race day. Battle damage assessment: Several muscles in the back of my left arm were sore for a couple of hours after the half - may have been from my arm swing. The inside of my right knee was a little sore. The back of my right heel was almost heeled until today. The race opened up the blister area. It was sore and tender after the race and into the evening. This is a fun half to do - very nice to run for the kids at St. Jude too. Last updated: 2009-08-07 12:00 AM
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United States
St. jude
26F / -3C
Sunny
Overall Rank = 200/6825
Age Group = 45-49
Age Group Rank = 8/261
Up at 4:50 am. Ate a bowl of oatmeal with a sliced banana, and wheat germ at 5am. Got dressed to race and did some stretching. Left my house at 5:55 to drive downtown to the race site. Arrived at the Hampton Inn downtown and parked in their garage at 6:25. I walked over to the Peabody Hotel, found a place to lay down and do some stretching. Visited with some friends running the marathon and half marathon, and used the restrooms a few times between 6:30 and 7:30 when I began my race warmup.
I did a half mile easy run, and 3-4 striders. At 7:40, I made a dash to my car where I shedded my warmup jacket and vest and put on a Thunder Racing singlet over my l/s top. My final apparel decision was I was to wear a l/s top with singlet, compression shorts and running shorts for the weather conditions. I also swapped gloves for a thinner pair. I was very comfortable with this race gear setup from start to finish. With clear sunny skies, I felt like I was going to warm up and be more comfortable in this setup once I got a couple of miles down the road.