Another great run, another PR! I wasn't really sure what would happen this race, I ran another half last weekend, a very tough hilly course for a PR at 1:56ish. Then this was my peak training week for IM AZ, so I hit it hard all week with alot of time on the bike and a hard day on Friday. I knew this was a somewhat easy course and perfect for a PR, so I went out with the idea of attempting to hit about 1:55, but realizing my legs were tired.
I started out in between the 1:55 and 2:00 pacer planning on starting slow then working my splits down as I went. So I let the 1:55 pacer gain some ground on me in the first few miles as I got my legs going, then steadily worked on gaining back time and passing them. In reality I ended up passing them around mile 5 or 6 then basically just tried to hold on for the rest of the race. I knew the hills were coming after mile 10, the same ones that destroyed me last year, so I just focused on being ready for them. All the while playing the "what if" math game in my head of where I was, what pace I needed to maintain etc. I hit the hills at mile 10 and made it through without any terrible time drops, maybe lost about 15 seconds in one of my mile splits, then after that it was an all out battle with my legs to the finish. At one point I realized if I could run 2.1 more miles at 8:00 I would break 1:50, then I quickly realized that simply was not going to happen! I ran strong to the finish and felt that I really gave it my all in the race. After last week's race, I felt that I could have pushed harder. That was not the case yesterday, I feel like I was right on the edge of falling into a hard bonk.

Nothing.

Warm down was the walk back to the parking area. It was cold and my post-race chills were setting in fast. I just needed to get the heck out of there and into a warm car.


Cold weather, tired legs from a hard week of training. One of these days I'm going to have the time to actually train for a half, instead of just doing them in the middle of training for something else, and I'll even do a proper taper, then see what happens.


Team Ortho does a great job putting on a race, they've been doing this one for several years and they have it all worked out. I seem to remember more water stations in previous years, perhaps with the cold weather they cut back on them, I'm not sure. Free beer and post race party is great, I just never stick around for it. I'll certainly be back and continue to do their races.