Rock ā€˜nā€™ Roll USA Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon


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Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C.
United States
Competitor Group, Inc.
42F / 6C
Overcast
Total Time = 1h 45m
Overall Rank = 1750/19945
Age Group = 25-29
Age Group Rank = 319/1551
Pre-race routine:

Stayed at a hotel about a mile from the start line. Got up at 4:00 to eat some oatmeal, then went back to sleep and woke up around 5:30. I got virtually no sleep due to a combination of nerves and the loud noise outside the hotel - perfectly fine, but I'm used to living in the middle of no-where so ANY noise is noisy!
Event warmup:

Walked the mile to the start with some friends who were also doing the race. wanted to take a bit of a warm-up run, but frankly there was no space and the first couple of miles ended up being pretty easy with all the crowding.
Run
  • 1h 45m
  • 13.1 miles
  • 08m 01s  min/mile
Comments:

The first few miles were VERY crowded - I'd seeded myself to finish in 1:50 and the folks in front of me were no-where close to holding that pace. After the first half mile I was almost a minute down on my target pace. During the second and third miles I caught up a lot of it by running right at the edge but I was still doing a lot of weaving.

By the time we got past the climb out of Rock Creek Park I was feeling pretty tired, a lot of folks around me were suffering too. fortunately, the course drops mostly downhill from there, and I was able to catch up a good chunk of what I lost through Rock Creek park. The crowds were a little thinner, although I was still doing a lot of jumping between folks and it was hard to find a rhythm. At this point I switched from the Virtual partner to instant pace and tried to keep the number below 8:00 for the rest of the race so I was making up time.

After the water stop at mile 11 I was wasted and running on will power. The last mile or so (following the marathon split-off) was downhill, so I took advantage of that and pushed as hard as I could. Once we could see the stadium I was running with whatever I had left - crossed the line and immediately had to lean on the fence.
What would you do differently?:

Paced perfectly and hit my target right on the nose - aimed for 1:45 and hit 1:45 EXACTLY. Maybe have tried to seed myself further towards the front by asking for a higher coral so I wasn't weaving through people. With 30,000 odd people, I don't think that's possible, but the weaving and surging takes it out of you pretty quickly.
Post race
Warm down:

Took advantage of the BUFFET at the finish line. Got all sorts of goodies.

Event comments:

Excellent race that went of seamlessly. They made everything SO easy. The only issue we had was packet pick-up closing at 7 on Friday, along with the DC traffic - we made it with less than 30 minutes to spare.




Last updated: 2013-01-14 12:00 AM
Running
01:45:00 | 13.1 miles | 08m 01s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/1551
Overall: 0/19945
Performance: Good
Course: Loop around DC. Mostly flat although with several small steep hills and one major climb coming from Rock Creek Park up to Calvert Street.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Too much
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5] 5
Physical exertion [1-5] 5
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Good
Race evaluation [1-5] 5