Unite Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I ran a 5K the weekend before pacing with my wife in order to get a feel for what a 9 minute mile or so felt like when I felt fresh. Thought I was doing just about that level of effort and hit the 1st mile in 8:45. The only thing with that is with all the congestion and slowing down the 1st few minutes my actual running was faster than that. I started to get the picture when my 2nd mile was 8:07 (Jay passed by me about then) and 3rd mile was 8:02. Even though it felt easy and I felt great I didn't have a great level of confidence I could keep that up for another ten so I tried to slow it down a bit. For the next 7 miles I clocked just about an 8:30 pace for each mile and stopped to take in some gatorade around mile 4, 6 and 8. Even the 11th mile felt pretty good though I fell off to 8:48. It was about then that I had to start holding on. The 12th mile felt like it would never end and surely felt like I was barely moving. Hit the marker at a 9:13 pace so all in all wasn't too upset with that. The plan all along was to hit 10 miles at 1:25 or so and then just finish to be under 2:00. I actually hit 10 at 1:22 and change so I had some time in the bank. Once I hit 12 I knew I was going to finish well for me but was determined not to do any walking even though a couple of hills on that last mile had every last bone in my body looking to walk. Finally I could hear the crowd and I knew I made it. Didn't want to sprint or do anything silly though as my right calf felt like it was on the edge of locking up and the same with my right glute and I do have a Tri next weekend. Ran through the finish line and saw Jared's wife and 2 kids over by the fence so went over to say hi to them and let them know Jared should be 4 or 5 minutes behind me the last time I saw him.

Definitely more long distance training so I could race the final 5K instead of holding on as I had under 1:50 in my sights but just didn't have the juice to complete it.

Found Jay (1:48) and waited for Jared. We then hit the food tent for a needed pretzel, granola bar and drink. The wind was making all of us in our sweaty cltothes quite cold so we set out to find the gear check buses. Found them, changed into a dry shirt and went to find the car and get out of dodge.


Those last 3.1 miles! They really were difficult and when I do my next half I plan on racing them hard.


As always CGI put on an incredible race, well organized especially for all the people. Somehow only 2400 are listed on the results and 4000 or so registerd so I'm not sure why such the disparity but it wouldn't have anything to do with the event as it was top notch.