The funny thing about this race is I’ve never done a stand alone HM. I’ve run this distance twice before but always at the end of a HIM. I did well at my last Army Ten Miler but this was going to be a new base line race for me.

My goal was a 2:15 and the pace groups were every ten minutes so I positioned myself between the 2:10 and the 2:20 teams. We started 15 minutes late. Rumor was they were waiting on rest of the buses to arrive. There isn't much to do when you are standing around freezing so I shuffled my feet trying to keep warm and kept sipping my HEED. I decided to stop drinking b/c I new I was going to have to go to the bathroom. I think they played the national anthem but we couldn't hear it. Finally we were off.

Having done the Army Ten Miler with over 25,000 people this crowd was not bad at all. I think there were 2500 races total between the half and the full. Everyone spread out nicely. Several women were dashing into the bushes throughout the race and I considered it a few times but decided I'd see how long I could hold it. Funny difference between tri's and running races. On the plus side you don't have all the gear to bring with you, but you don't get to pee in the water either.

I was very familiar with most of the course since I spend a lot of time training on the Tabacco Trail. The first 3 miles is basically down hill on the roads until you reach the trail. Then the trail is a gradual down hill grade until the turn around where you push back up the path and up the roads to the finish. Because I was familiar with course and I knew how it felt to run back up the trail so I decided to take advantage of the down hills and bank some time. Up to that point I had not had a very successful long training run so I was caution as to what I could achieve. But every time I checked my average pace it was getting better and better. That was very encouraging. After my last long run nutritional fiasco I was cautious with the gels. I wanted to have a good breakfast and rely on HEED and that worked very well. I took one gel at mile 6 and that was it. In the past I've been very gel reliant at races so I think the switch I made with my body to HEED has paid off.

I settled into a pace that was comfortably hard for the first half. Once we turned around it was up hill on the trial and time to push a little harder. I decided to check my time at mile 10 to see where I was for the remaining 5K. I had dropped my average pace from 10:35 to 10:30 at that point and decided I had enough juice in the tank for a final push. It was great to actually pass people going up hill those last three miles. I averaged 10 min/mile pace for the rest of the race and dropped my overall pace to 10:25. I was so excited!! According to my Garmin the course was a tad longer than the 13.1 but if you calculate back I was right on target. Plus I had a negative split. First half was 1:09:03, second half was 1:06:44.

Funnies on the race course: the first marathon runner came flying by with such beautiful strides. The marathon winner had a time around 2:20 – just amazing. There was a goat on the trail around mile 6. Welcome to North Cackalacky  The mile 8 aide station was stocked with beer!!!


I am pleased with the potential my performance showed. I’ve worked hard and done well. BUT, this is my first test of ability under my coach’s guidance and my ego has jumped all over my face. I had several friends racing halves this weekend and they all had fantastic races. I am super happy for them but I want to perform at their level too!!! So I want to race another half before the end of the year and I want to get as close to a 2 hour HM as possible.

In summary my best 13.1 time was at Augusta HIM last year at with a 2:31 (and we won’t talk about my disaster at White Lake the year before). My coach said I should be able to hit between a 2:15 and 2:17 time with a pace of 10:17 to 10:27 per mile and I did exactly that. Guess the coach knows what he’s talking about. Now I need to hit the 10:17 pace and eventually drop that in to the 9 something pace.