Ralston Creek Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon


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Arvada, Colorado
United States
Racing Underground
20sF / 0C
Overcast
 		Total Time = 1h 57m 27s
Overall Rank = 168/422
Age Group = 25-29
Age Group Rank = 0/
Pre-race routine:

I woke up around 7am, had some cereal with blue berries and some water. We drove to the race and, after realizing I forgot my water bottle (that I bring with me *everywhere else*), we stopped at 7-11 to get some water, and I got a cliff bar. I only had a small piece of it though.

We got to the race and I had to use the bathroom real bad. The line was pretty long, and I was worried that I wouldn't make it to the start line on time. I did though. I would have done even worse if I didn't donate to that port-o-potty.
Event warmup:

Just walking around a bit. It was really cold!
Run
  • 00m
  • 13.1 miles
  •  min/mile
Comments:

This was a pretty disappointing race. The course was fairly hilly, but I've been training on hills. It was also really cold, with some icy spots on the course, but none of that slowed me town too much.

I went out for the first mile at 8m/m pace, and the second mile at slightly over that. Then, I started slowing down, but I didn't really *feel* like i was slowing down. I was sort of convinced that the numbers were lying to me (that was fucking stupid). I knew that the second half of the race had a lot of downhill, so I figured that I could make up some time there. And at mile 8, down some pretty decent hills, I felt like I was flying. But, apparently, I wasn't.

I'm always afraid of going out too fast. Maybe I did go out too fast, and that caused me to slow down. Or, perhaps I should have put aside my worries about going out too fast, believe me watch, and push myself (around mile 3 and beyond) when I found myself slowing down. I'm pretty awful at pacing.

What would you do differently?:

I don't know.
Post race
Warm down:

Walking, eating, stretching, and freezing.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

I don't know! When I'm not feeling up to it, I have a *very* hard time pushing myself into a zone of mental or aerobic discomfort. I need to find ways to do this. Perhaps speed or hill work outs would do the trick, but I'm pretty worried about getting injured, especially since the next few weeks will be a building phase.

Event comments:

I'm not really sure what to think at this point. I've done training runs at a faster pace (though I've done some at a slower pace too, when having a bad day), and from what I hear, I should be able to perform better during at race than on a training run. Maybe I could just blame this on a 'bad day', but that isn't satisfying. I'm feeling pretty jaded. I performed worse here than my first half marathon two years ago in SC. The course was much flatter in SC, and the weather conditions were pretty optimal that morning. But given two years of training, I really wish that I could have seen some substantial improvement. I don't want to run another slow marathon. I'm not sure what I need to do differently. Should I try to run my long training runs faster? Should I try to run my short runs faster? Is it nutrition? I certainly don't want to get injured.




Last updated: 2012-02-10 12:00 AM
Running
00:00:00 | 13.1 miles |  min/mile
Age Group: 0/
Overall: 0/422
Performance:
Course: The course was advertised as having a "barely noticeable elevation gain" for the first few miles, with a "good climb" at mile 7. Well, the beginning was pretty noticeable, and the climb was a bitch.
Keeping cool Drinking
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
Course challenge
Organized?
Events on-time?
Lots of volunteers?
Plenty of drinks?
Post race activities:
Race evaluation [1-5]