Palos Bank Southwest Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I ran 50 total miles in April, and my 11 mile long run was about a month ago, so... it is what it is.

I knew early on that it was going to hurt ... body just wasn't used to the pounding. Went in with both my knee and ankle tendinitis flaring up. Both made themselves known, but it was definitely manageable while running.

Thought that a 9:30m/m pace would probably be at about the threshold of what I could handle at my fitness level. Kept a close eye on the Garmin for the first 6 miles, since my fresh legs wanted to run something closer to a 9m/m. At 7 miles, figuring that half the race was behind me, I covered up the Garmin and just ran. Had a couple 9:15ish miles in there, and then just held on for the rest of the race, with pace starting to balloon to 10m/m.

I definitely outran my fitness.

Mentally this was a good effort for me. I was tired, hurting, sore... but told myself I could only walk through water stops. In the past, I would have walked a good chunk of this, feeling like I did. Not this race, though. I told myself I could run as slow as I wanted, as long as I was actually RUNNING.

So, I'll take victories where I can get them. If I can start getting some miles on my legs, I think it could be a good running season.



Oh, I dunno... train, perhaps?

Hunted down some post-race food, picked up my bag and got the heck out of Dodge, after chatting with Schmize for a few minutes. Had company coming over, so I needed to get home.


The obvious: training. Possibly not being injured would have helped, too.


Great local race. Early bird fee of $35 was awesome, and got a New Balance gender-specific (important!) tech tshirt. Didn't stick around for post-race stuff, but it looked like they were setting up for a good time, with a band and beer and all sorts of stuff.

I'll certainly consider putting it on my schedule again next year.