St. Michaels Running Festival Half Marathon - Run

So this was my very first half marathon race... I've done a few half marys before, but I've always done them with my wife, so I've never gotten the chance to race one. I knew that I had 1:40 all day long, and thought that, under better conditions, I could challenge the 1:30 mark. But with racing the Police Week 5K last Saturday I wasn't too sure what would happen in the later stages of this race. My quads were still a bit sore on Thursday so I really didn't know what would happen. I decided that I would shoot for 1:35 and adjust as necessary.

My plan was to go out fairly easy, try to let the pack disperse, and warm up the legs to see how running a decent pace would feel. I eased into the first 2 miles just as planned ticking them off in 7:24 and 7:20. The legs felt pretty good and by this point in the race things thinned out and I decided to pick up the pace a bit.

Miles 3, 4, and 5 looped though a golf course community, since the road was sort of winding the whole way it was tough to see where folks were in relation to me, but I just figured that I was going to run my pace and try to take advantage of any drafting opportunities that I could. The notched up pace still felt good, my legs didn't hurt at all, and my HR was nice and settled. Miles 3, 4, and 5 came in at 7:06, 7:10, and 7:18.

Coming out of the golf course the course started its out and back portion on the main road into/out of town. The turn around point was at the 7.5 mark so I was anxious to see where I stood. On the main road it was easy to see folks up ahead so I just picked out the next person ahead of me and made them my target. This was the part of the race where I amped it up just a bit more as I tried to pick up as many places as I could. As I approached the turn around point I started counting people to see where I was. Once I reached the turn around I was in 38th place. Not what I was hoping, but I was still running strong and had picked off about 10 folks on my way to the turn around. Now it was time for me to pick off a few more. I kept my foot on the gas at the turn around and ran pretty hard back into town, picking up 5 more spots to put me at 33rd, running shoulder to shoulder with another runner as we started to reach town. Miles 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 came in at 7:01, 7:02, 6:57, 6:58, 7:02.

Once we hit the 10 mile mark the steady breeze was smack dab in the face and there would be no break until we got into town and eventually on the trail. I just tried to keep the HR in check and not blow up trying to fight the wind for sub 7 minute miles. Surprisingly, my legs still felt pretty good and I was able to convince myself that once we got into town I was going to put the hammer down if I still had anything in the tank. Miles 11, and 12 were a bit off pace due to the wind, but still a respectable 7:14 and 7:12.

Once we hit town I knew that it would be a few quick turns and then onto the trail for the finish. I had managed to close the gap to the next few runners and I had a good 7 or so folks ahead of me, but not by much. I knew that could take them down. I dropped the hammer for the next 1.1 mile and just kept running. The final mile ticked off at 6:31 with the 0.1 coming in at :37.

Not too much, this was a very good race for me. Its the first time I've "raced" a half mary so it was largely new territory for me. I know that I could have push a bit harder but all in all, I think that I paced the race well.

Walked for a bit and then did some stretching to ease the muscles. I had to loop back to the finish line to wait for my wife. She was hoping to go sub-2 hours after setting a PR at the R&R in NOLA. I was watching for her to come in and unfortunately she missed her goal by 7 seconds... that was a bit devastating for her, but she still set another new PR by over 1:40, so she had a great race.

After she finished we walked back to the post race party, had a our free beer, listened to some music, and picked up my 2nd place AG trophy.


Nothing really. I had a very good race.


This is the 2nd year of this race and they did a great job. It was much bigger than last year yet they still managed to learn from the year-one mistakes. Very good race, a great town, and I will be back again next year.