Tobacco Road Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

Started with the 3:15 marathon pace group- figured I would hang with them until I wanted to speed up. Well, that was the idea. I did 7:30 odd for the first mile due to some congestion and the uphill start and then I brought the pace to low 7:xx pace. In retrospect, given the conditions, I should have just done 7:30s for the first 6 miles. But I was trying to get to 6:52 miles so tried not to lose touch too early. Anyway, felt OK I guess until I started to feel very drained about 5 miles in, with sore quads. WTF. I backed off the pace at that point and puddled along but it just got worse and worse. I walked an aid station (again, WTF) to get something to drink. I should prob have grabbed some GU earlier but just didnt feel like it. Walked 2 more aid stations and then another short stretch...when I walked it was a huge relief. Why was I so tired? I had training runs at this pace and felt better! Grrr. Saw Becky and the boys and then Jon and Janelle (and the dogs) around mile 12- that was fun. Other than that, there weren't too many highlights.
7:10 pace for first half of the race; 7:50ish for the second half :-(

I don't know. Sleep more? Not suck? HTFU and not walk? I actually don't think that hurt me that much- maybe a minute. Just not a good week all round and not my day. How disappointing. I really thought I could break 1:32 and was trying for 1:30. At the very least I would break 1:35...but no. Heck, I'll just take this as good run training for tri season and go from here. Funny thing is I ran a 1:35 in this race (in perfect conditions) two years ago, on triathlon training (was training for White LAke at the time). Maybe cross training works for me? Or maybe not. I don't know. I'm a little puzzled :-( After a night's sleep I think that what I should really do in training is do a real "race-pace" session a few weeks out. Not a 10K race pace run, but a true race rehearsal. I ran 7:30s at times in training for 12-14 miles and they felt hard. I hoped a taper would get me to be able to handle the race pace (which in training I did for a 10K). Maybe run a hard 12-miler starting at race pace or close to it and see how long I can hold on. If I get tired at 6 miles, then I know that is not the right pace. Just a thought.

Just saw that I was 18 out of 205 in my age-group. Seems OK...maybe everyone else was slow too :-)

Uhm, warm-down? You mean "stop and bend over for a bit until the pain stopped?".


Suckiness, humidity, pacing. Who knows. Humidity did something but not this much. It DOES make me feel better knowing that Andrew ran 1:28 last year and 1:36 this year...he struggled too! I just think it was a combo of everything leading into this but I am seriously bummed about this. Oh well, there will be other races.


Just not my day I guess. Thanks Jon and Janelle for coming out. It was fun seeing you guys.