St. Cloud Earth Day Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

the morning started out by driving through heavy rain and hail to get to the race. Once I got there I waited for a few people (jpw, lincguyus, freckleface) before the race started. Met jpw (the other two had soomething come up so they weren't able to meet us) about 8:30 we went our seperate ways and I went to warm up and get ready to race. I went for a 5 mintute jog and stretched really well. I saw Ian and his wife before the race so I was able to run with him since we were both aiming for the same pace. My plan was to take a gel 30 minutes before the race, take one at mile 5 and one at mile 10. I felt that if I was able to do that my body would be good with nutrition. I took the gel before I went to warm up at 8:30. I got to the starting line about 5 minutes before the race started, good thing I was not there any earlier as it was really cold and raining slightly, it made it hard to keep warm, but nothing like the last 1/2 I did in January. It took about 2 miles for the people to spread out enough to make it feel like I was not at a college party. I took the 2nd gel at mile 5, since there was not water until the 10K mark, I had to slowly take it. At about the 5.5 mile mark I got a really bad side stitch, it got to the point where I was ready to walk, but I figured if I stopped to walk there was no way that I was going to hit my goal of 1:45. So I continued to run through it and a few times in the 3-4 minutes that it lasted I literally felt like I was going to puke. I focused on breathing hard on the exhale and only when my left foor hit the ground, by the 6.5 mile mark it had gone away and I was happy that I made it through it. It was at this pioint I realized that my HRM was not working, so I had to run the rest of the race based on feel and mile splits. By the 7 mile mark my shoes and socks were soaked from the puddles and the constant rain, so it made my legs feel all the more heavy. At mile 10 I took the last of the 3 gels, and we were a little ahead of pace for the 1:45, which was good because my legs were starting to get a little sore and felt really heavy. At about mile 11 I asked Ian how he felt, he said that he was just going to put it in cruise control and finish the run. Despite the heavy legs, I felt suprisingly good, I think this was the first point where I realized that I was going to really break the 1:45 mark. I remember looking at my watch and trying to pace myself out and thinking it would be really cool to break 1:42, but after some thinking I realized that unless I could do 7 minute miles for the last 2.1 miles it wasn't going to happen. None the less I picked up the pace a little and started to pick off people, it was kind of fun because you could really see who had paced them selves well and who had not...I love looking strong when others look weak (even when I know inside that I would much rather curl up and die becuase I am hurting so much). In the last 1.1 miles (which I ran 7:15/mile split) I put on found Finger 11's "move" on my Mp3 player and really focused on striding and finishing my kick. For the last 1/2 mile I wish I would have been able to see my heart rate as I am sure that it would have been in the mid 180's, but I finished the race and looked at my watch - 1:42:34 a new PR for me!! Now I have 4 weeks before the Fargo 1/2 to focus on faster tempo long runs and try to break 1:40! :)

Have a HR monitor that actually works. Other than that not much since it was a new PR!

Walked around a little, got the free massage, and stretched


lack of longer runs


Great race, just wish it wasn't raining and cold...not much the organizers can do about that though :)