St. Michaels Running Festival Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

This was a relatively easy run for me, as I was pacing and coaching my wife. I didn't wear the HRM, but I assume I stayed in Z2 the whole time.

The wife did excellent, I was super proud of her. We both don't often run stand alone halfs, most of the halfs she's run have been because she registered for the full but got hurt or otherwise wasn't trained up for the distance so switched to the half. So needless to say her half PR (2:14) isn't (wasn't) indicative of her capabilities. Her goal for this race was to come in under 2:05, with an eye towards breaking 2 hours if all went well.

I was a bit worried about the weather, because while it was a beautiful day for a picnic, it was a bit warm for a race. I checked the weather at about 8:00 when we headed out, and it was already 64 degrees, and the race wasn't supposed to start until 8:45.

There was some sort of delay at the start... not sure what the deal was, they didn't say but I know that when I looked at my watch it was past 8:45 and the announcer said "15 minutes 'til the start." Anyhow the race went off a hair past 9:00 and we were all eager to go. We started out mid pack and things went pretty well. It was a small race so there really wasn't too much of a crowding issue anywhere along the way. This worked out well since I was able to hit our goal pace straight away and not worry too much about a lot of drastic pace changes.

The first mile ran though the historic town center area and it was pretty neat to see everything, then we headed out of the "city" on the main road and made our way to a nearby golf course community for mile 1.5 to 4.75. it was nice in there with a decent amount of shade. As we hit the first water stop at just past mile 2 we just kept on, as is our usual practice. We are both still pretty well hydrated at this point, and as you know the first water stop is always a zoo. This proved to be a bad idea...

Once we left the golf course community, we headed out on the main road through the farm lands which was H-O-T. By now it was close to 10:00 AM, the sun was fairly high in the sky, and there was little shade... boy that drink at the second water stop is going to taste good. Made it to the second water stop and... what is this... no cups! Holy crap you don't have any cups??? Its only the second stop and we aren't moving that slow, how do you not have any cups???? Anyway, onward and upward!

So after a bit of frustration on the lack of water, we just kept on. Mile 5 - 7 were not too bad... still keeping a solid 9:30 pace and the wife was holding up well. I knew that the next couple of stretches would be the toughest since it is about a 5 mile out and back stretch with no real scenery change and no real shade, so pretty tough both physically and mentally. We made our way to the mile 7 water stop and thankfully got our first drink of the race.

Made the turn around at mile 7.5 and headed back into town on the main road, at this point we were on the sunny side of the road and where there were a few patches of trees to provide pockets of shade on the other side, we, the runners, were providing the pockets of shade for the trees on this side! Plus it was now past 10:00 and I'm sure the temp was above 70 at this point and we were both getting pretty hot. Once we reached mile 9, I checked with the wife to see how she was feeling and it was apparent that putting the hammer down and gunning for sub-2 wasn't going to be in the cards today. So we just settled in and I knew that she could even trail off a bit and still meet the 2:05 goal without much of an issue.

Mile 9-11 were fairly uneventful, it was the tail end of the quiet hot road though farmland and we made our way back into town at mile 11.5, still holding the 9:30 pace without much issue (at least none that she would tell me about!) Once we made this point I knew that 2:05 was in the bag, we got some needed scenery change, pockets of shade, and there were some spectators here and there cheering us on, which is always nice. The wife wasn't showing any signs of slowing, and even if she did start to taper off all we needed to do was hold 10:30ish miles for the final two and we'd be good for the 2:05.

Ran the final mile or so on a 'rails to trails' path, which was really nice, and finished strong for a 2:03:23 PR for the wife!

Nothing really, I had a great time running with my wife and was very excited to have her finally run a good solid half and set a nice new PR.

Grabbed some high quality H20 and walked back to the boat. Had some amazing home made shrimp salad sandwiches my wife made up and tried to ice down my muscles from the inside by consuming copious amounts of icy cold fermented beverages.


I think it could have been a bit better/faster of a run if it started earlier or if it wasn't as warm out. Having stocked aid stations would have been nice as well.


This was an inaugural event, so you know that their were some issues. All things considered, however, I think it went pretty well.