Shamrock Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

I had set one of my New Year's resolutions to run this race sub 2 hrs. So I tried to train with that in mind. I try to break goals into chunks and someday I'd like to try for a BQ time. So I figured the first step was to see if I can run a half in under 2 hours.

The race started ok although my friend, Karla and I got seperated at the beginning. She was going to help me along the way make sure I kept going. My heart rate took off from the beginning and I never could get it under control. I wanted to run the race in mid to high 150s until the end not start in the mid to high 160s.

First few miles were a bit under pace (few seconds) but I expected that so I didn't worry. I was focusing on settling into a pace. Luckily Karal found me around mile 4 and I felt much better. She definitely kept my feet moving. We settled into a plan for the rest of the race. A few quicker miles so we could work in 2 walk breaks and some water/gel time.

It worked perfectly but I fought the HR the whole time. Last 2.5 miles I could feel my body getting tired and the HR really taking off. By the end it was close to that point where you grab the bar during a VO2 max test to signal you are cooked. But I made my goal and felt fine once I stopped. I'm very proud of myself b/c running is not easy for me and I made a 21 min. improvement from last year's race and dropped my pace from 10:19 to 9:00.

Not sure - I'd like to know why I had the HR issue. It's not uncommon for me to have it zoom up at the beginning of a run then settle back. I tried to avoid this by running a mile to warm-up and I tried to start easy.

Also I drank very little on the course - enough to wash down my gel at mile 7 but that is not usual for me. I loaded up on liquid the night before and it was very cold during the run. I don't necessary drink a lot on training runs. It's just not me. My pee was light and I didn't lose weight from the race so my body was ok.

My best guess is I did not run hard enough on the tempo runs so I will make a mental note on that for the next training program. I did learn though that I can push my body past its comfort zone for 2 hrs. That will come in handy at the Mooseman HIM this spring.

Walked, gathered my goodies, drank a beer and drank some beef broth.


Training - need to be better disciplined on tempo runs.


Great race - the organizers do a great job. You get great goodies and lots of extras. Super flat and fast course that is great for a PR.