Cajun Country Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

This was my first Half-Marathon and I enjoyed it more than I though I would. The most difficult thing for me was figuring out how to pace myself being I never ran this distance before. I was nervious that I was going to go out too hard and burn out. So I decided to just make this race an easy good first time learning experience for more to come.

The race started uphill and then there were rolling hills throughout the 2 loop coarse. I am not a fan of hills but I enjoyed this coarse a lot.
I started off real slow just doing a WU mile. I soon noticed that I was getting put in the BOP. It was okay because I knew I was going to catch up as I was planning to do negative splits the whole way. I had to remember to race my own race and not get caught up with were I was the first mile out of 13. After that I started to build a good rythm and picked up the pace mile by mile. At the half way point the time was 1:06 and I felt too good. So I decided to push myself and see how much I could make up since I lost so much already. The second half of the race I did in 57 minutes continuing with the the negative splits.

There was a total of about 2 1/2 mile of cross country running through the woods that I liked. Except for the fact that it broke my momentum and steady HR that I was trying to maintain. I actully passed a few people here. At the end of the second loop to the finish line the last mile or so was CC. Of coarse I had some in the tank to empty to I was sprinting through the woods and got to a point were my HR was 199 and I had to ease off a bit. I finished hard, but in a longer race like this were I am not winning the thing I could have probably just kept my pace. But I do like finishing races with nothing left because it gives myself the satisfaction of putting up a good effort.

AVGHR: 181
MAXHR: 199
total cal burned:1620
MAX pace: 6:08
Splits:
mile 1: 10:58 avghr-165
mile 2: 10:31 avghr-171
mile 3: 10:19 avghr-173
mile 4: 9:48 avghr-177
mile 5: 9:41 avghr-182
mile 6: 9:25 avghr-183
mile 7: 9:32 avghr-185
mile 8: 8:55 avghr-186
mile 9: 9:10 avghr-185
mile10: 9:03 avghr-187
mile11: 8:33 avghr-190
mile12: 8:22 avghr-193
mile13: 8:36 avghr-196
mile.01 :52 avghr-196

Nothing for this race. I considered this a learning experience for me. Now the next one I know how and when to push myself and I definatly plan on seeing improvement.

Walked around some



ignorance of pacing myself for the distance and not know what my body could handle. I think I was in better shape than I thought.


Coarse was awesome, volunteers were great, race bag was good with socks, gloves, and long sleeve T-shirt.

http://www.lafayettefitness.org/Results/2007%20CAJUN%20COUNTRY%20HA...

http://www.lafayettefitness.org/