Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon


View Member's Race Log View other race reports
Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C.
United States
Competitor Group, Inc.
45F / 7C
Overcast
 		Total Time = 2h 05m 42s
Overall Rank = 3678/12525
Age Group = 50-54
Age Group Rank = 88/512
Pre-race routine:

Got there with plenty of time to spare. After checking my bag, kept warm by wearing a trashbag. Then spent time walking and using porta-potties several times. Funny how if you just walked to the later corrals the lines were much shorter.
Event warmup:

Walking the entire length of the corrals twice.
Run
  • 2h 05m 42s
  • 13.1 miles
  • 09m 36s  min/mile
Comments:

Good first 4-5 miles but probably too fast. Then there was "the hill" at about mile 6. I started to fall really apart here. I should have taken the clue that I needed of drink more water by the little drops of sweat comings off my cap. But since the temps were cool, I never felt too warm but I think I was sweating plenty. Miles 6-9 were not really very good. Wasn't keeping very focused. Had a short burst of energy between mile 9-10. At mile 10, I realized that I could almost break 2 hours if I could pull out 9:00 minute miles but just couldn't get there. Got progressively slower through to the end. Really struggled the last mile.

I must admit that quite a few times during this run I thought to myself "Thank goodness I am not doing the marathon!"
What would you do differently?:

Earlier in the season I was shooting for a 2:00 finish. But readjusted expectations to around 2:05 based on February and March running totals (32 miles in February and 9 in March!). I thought 2:05 was a good stretch goal given the low training volume. Finished just 42 seconds off this -- so that's pretty good.

I will need to keep up training volume!

I will need to follow a hydration plan. I only had one teeny cup of water, maybe 2 ounces, at about mile 6. This was clearly not enough and probably impacted the run overall. I was very thirsty for the remainder of the day.
Post race
Warm down:

Moving with the masses through the finish corral.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Lack of training in the 6 weeks prior to the race.

Not hydrating enough.

Event comments:

You would think that the Rock N Roll organizers would have the design of finish shutes and gear bag pickup figured out by now. The finish shute was too short and had a hard right hand turn to get to the post-race recovery area. This was just jammed packed and I guess at some point people were forced to walk across the finish line due to the bottleneck.

The gear check -- I was in a short line and it took 20 minutes.

I will think about this race for next year -- if only to see if I can do better! Nice course. Good organization @ race start.




Last updated: 2012-12-21 12:00 AM
Running
02:05:42 | 13.1 miles | 09m 36s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/512
Overall: 0/12525
Performance: Average
Course: Through the streets of DC. I didn't look at a map closely before hand, so most of the time I didn't really know where I was most of the time.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Not enough
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Average
Mental exertion [1-5] 2
Physical exertion [1-5] 3
Good race? Ok
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Average
Race evaluation [1-5] 3