Tyranena Beer Run - 1/2 Barrel Route - RunHalf Marathon

Last year, I started too fast, took the early hills too hard and blew up about mile 6. So I thought I would try a different approach this year. Ran the first 3/4 of a mile with Stacey through traffic. She asked me our pace and I said about 8:30. She said: "Hmmm, I wonder..." I thought that meant she wanted to pick it up, so I sped up, Somehow I lost her in the crowd. Looked around, but couldn't find her. Sorry Stacey, I didn't mean to be anti-social by moving ahead without saying goodbye. Pushed the pace a little, but kept myself in check for the hills and the rest of the race. About mile two I started running next to this guy who was a little older than me. It was his 2nd HM and first time on the course. He said " I like this course so far, some nice rolling hills, but not too bad. I thought to myself, do I break it to him that there are some major hills coming up or let him be surprised. I decided to let him in on the secret. I told him how I started out too fast last year and the hills made me pay for it. He said, " now that you mention it, I have started out a little fast." I decided to move past him before the first hill because I did not want to witness the aftermath.
Miles 3-5 are filled with quite a few hills. My strategy this year was to take the up hills steady, but not hammer up them and then take advantage of gravity on the way down picking up my cadence and pace. This year that worked well and I felt pretty good coming out of that section. About mile 5 there were two women that would become pace booty for me for the rest of the race. Let's call them Pace Booty Sisters (PBS) for short. THis was not traditional pace booty, as sometimes they were just in front of me and sometimes just behind me. Either way, it was motivating me to keep the pace. The most entertaining thing about these gals was the conversation they had with each other. Some gems was one girl telling the other that she usually liked to dial back in the middle of the race because she really didn't want her effort to be hard at the end. Another entertaining story was when they were talking about their boyfriends and one told the story about her boyfriend going out for a bike ride and then playing volleyball. What's odd about that? Well apparently he went with another girl and failed to mention that. The girlfriend showed up at volleyball to find the other girl's bike on her boyfriend's rack and the girl at the volleyball game. Then the trouble started. But I digress... Anyway, as entertaining as this was, at mile 10 I decided to make my move. PBS decided to stop at an aid station. I had my fuel belt and decided to skip it. I went past them. I was feeling pretty good so I decided to push to a sub 8 pace. For the rest of 10 and 11 I could not hear PBS and I figured I had lost them. Mile 12 had another hill, it got hard, but I kept my sub 8 pace (7:58). At mile 13, I started to hear the familiar laughing and talking of PBS, so I pushed the pace to 7:45. I couldn't let them catch me. I could still hear them back there and swore they would pass me in the end so I ticked up the pace to 7:20 and was kind of hurting, but I didn't care. I crossed the line in front of them (in fact by nearly a minute) But I digress... I Pr'ed the course by 13 minutes and beat my 1:50 goal.

Maybe push it a little harder from start.

Got chills right after I finished and kind of felt crappy. I grabbed some food and headed back to car to put my warm up clothes back on. I then went back to finish. Sadly I missed Stacey finish when I was gone and could not find her in the masses. I got in line for food (lasagna). I ending up sitting at a table with a bunch of strangers, who kept asking if I would move down to make room for their friends. It reminded me of freshman year in High School. Kind of sad. I got up and went to beer line. Nope no Stacey. The lines were long and thought it would be kind of sad for me to stand in line for 15 minutes to get a beer and drink by myself. So I left. All Donkeys are on notice: get your butts back to this race next year!


No focus in the last month and kind of doing this race as an after-thought.


A great race and a great after party (did you hear that? A great after party!)