Saratoga Palio Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

My goal was to go under 1:30, but I wasn't sure how that would go given my limited training this season. The heavy, humid conditions were not helping either; at times it felt like a struggle to breathe the damp air. I started out with a similar plan to last year: run about 6:45 to start, and adjust from there. Last year I was able to comfortably lower the pace as I went, this year I was just hoping to stay there or make small adjustments up (knowing a 6:52 is required for sub-1:30). It was going okay for the first half of the run, but it was definitely a hard pace. Once I hit the hill in the 9th mile, my pace went over 7:00/mi, and I was really struggling to bring it back down. Somewhere in the 10-11 mile range, I really thought I was losing my goal. I started to get very disappointed in myself and just went dark in general. I hit mile 12 and realized all was not lost if I could just somehow summon the courage to hammer this last mile home. It took all I had, but I ran that 13th mile in 6:43 (amazing how hard that felt compared to my 6:40 opening mile). Coming around the turn to the finish there were two guys right in front of me, and I just went into coked-out orangutan mode (watch says I ran the last tenth of a mile at a 4:53/mi pace) and sprinted past them. I barely snuck in under 1:30, and could not have been happier.

Given my training, I'd say I ran to the maximum potential today. I might have brought some nutrition with me given how few aid stations there were, and went with a tri top due to the conditions, but can't say either would've made me faster.

After giving everything I had towards the end, I really felt like vomiting after crossing the line. I knew laying down would be a mistake (also there was no where dry to do so), so I just walked/stumbled around for a bit. This year I was smart and signed up for a massage before the masses finished. Great decision too, probably the best post race massage I've had.


Training during PA school has been less than ideal, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. Even though this wasn't a PR, I'm extremely proud of my performance. It was really looking like I was going to lose my goal, and instead of accepting it, I chose to fight with everything I had left to get it back. It's amazing how much those 9 seconds mean to me.


Second year doing this race, and I really love it. Fun, fast course, big crowds, and this year the after party at Druthers was awesome.