Park 2 Park Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

so the goal here is to break 1:35 with the help of my polar and ironmitch. the start gun wasn't very loud and so i think we just sat there for a few seconds. i said to ironmitch, "if we blow this by three seconds, i'm going to be pi$$ed."

the first couple miles felt good. nice and strong, quick but not stupid. ironmitch said that he has never taken a race out this fast before. uh-oh. passed the first aid station, but i was ready for some water at the second. took a pull off the gel flask before and grabbed a cup of....gatorade? no!! great, now i'm going to be sticky the rest of the race.

about mile 3 ironmitch was hurting a bit. mile 4 he dropped off. all by myself. i have run over these trails countless times, so it wasn't so bad.

started to see the leaders coming back around mile 5. man these guys are fast. i also saw my friend who is going to take a crack at boston in two weeks. didn't even look like he was trying.

after the turn around, i saw my running friends and started the high fives. i also saw the boss, who was toughing it out despite limited training. she's amazing to me.

the second half i was trying to pick it up a little. i felt like i was giving more effort, but that effort wasn't really translating into faster splits. at least i wasn't going slower.

for the last four miles i had people cheering on a guy named bob behind me. bob and another gal finally passed me at mile 9 after drafting off me for about 30 minutes. too soon says i because i caught bob at mile 10 and the gal at 11. later gators.

i was catching people in the last couple miles. again, i was trying to pump in more effort, but i wasn't going too much faster. i did get passed by some gazelles, but i was doing more passing than getting passed. and for a swimmer, that is a pretty big deal.

the last half mile is on a slow uphill. not a ton of fun. i just stayed focused and kept on going. crossed that line at 1:34:17. beep beep.

for the race, not much. the early gatorade/hammer gel combo gave me a few side stiches, but that went away and that was the extent of my problems for this one. i think i raced the best race i could that day.

after i finished, i began to felt the extent of the effort i gave. my legs started to lock up and i started feeling ill. perfect.
i walked around a bit sipping water and then headed over to the massage tent. (the guy worked on me for about 20 minutes! score!)


i was really excited about this race because i felt like i ran strong the entire race. i think for next time i will do more pace work and get that time down even more.


i love this race. this is marathon quality race for a 10k price. every year i do this race, it gets better.