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Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon


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Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C.
United States
Competitor Group, Inc.
45F / 7C
Overcast
Total Time = 2h 05m 42s
Overall Rank = 3678/12525
Age Group = 50-54
Age Group Rank = 88/512
Pre-race routine:

Got there with plenty of time to spare. After checking my bag, kept warm by wearing a trashbag. Then spent time walking and using porta-potties several times. Funny how if you just walked to the later corrals the lines were much shorter.
Event warmup:

Walking the entire length of the corrals twice.
Run
  • 2h 05m 42s
  • 13.1 miles
  • 09m 36s  min/mile
Comments:

Good first 4-5 miles but probably too fast. Then there was "the hill" at about mile 6. I started to fall really apart here. I should have taken the clue that I needed of drink more water by the little drops of sweat comings off my cap. But since the temps were cool, I never felt too warm but I think I was sweating plenty. Miles 6-9 were not really very good. Wasn't keeping very focused. Had a short burst of energy between mile 9-10. At mile 10, I realized that I could almost break 2 hours if I could pull out 9:00 minute miles but just couldn't get there. Got progressively slower through to the end. Really struggled the last mile.

I must admit that quite a few times during this run I thought to myself "Thank goodness I am not doing the marathon!"
What would you do differently?:

Earlier in the season I was shooting for a 2:00 finish. But readjusted expectations to around 2:05 based on February and March running totals (32 miles in February and 9 in March!). I thought 2:05 was a good stretch goal given the low training volume. Finished just 42 seconds off this -- so that's pretty good.

I will need to keep up training volume!

I will need to follow a hydration plan. I only had one teeny cup of water, maybe 2 ounces, at about mile 6. This was clearly not enough and probably impacted the run overall. I was very thirsty for the remainder of the day.
Post race
Warm down:

Moving with the masses through the finish corral.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Lack of training in the 6 weeks prior to the race.

Not hydrating enough.

Event comments:

You would think that the Rock N Roll organizers would have the design of finish shutes and gear bag pickup figured out by now. The finish shute was too short and had a hard right hand turn to get to the post-race recovery area. This was just jammed packed and I guess at some point people were forced to walk across the finish line due to the bottleneck.

The gear check -- I was in a short line and it took 20 minutes.

I will think about this race for next year -- if only to see if I can do better! Nice course. Good organization @ race start.




Last updated: 2012-12-21 12:00 AM
Running
02:05:42 | 13.1 miles | 09m 36s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/512
Overall: 0/12525
Performance: Average
Course: Through the streets of DC. I didn't look at a map closely before hand, so most of the time I didn't really know where I was most of the time.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Not enough
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Average
Mental exertion [1-5] 2
Physical exertion [1-5] 3
Good race? Ok
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Average
Race evaluation [1-5] 3

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2013-03-17 12:07 PM

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Expert
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Falls Church
Subject: Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Half Marathon


2013-03-18 5:19 AM
in reply to: #4663145

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Member
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Middle Tennessee
Subject: RE: Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Half Marathon
Great race report! You hit your revised finish time well. Hydration is so darned important but cool weather fools us into thinking we can downplay it. But you can take that lesson learned forward when planning your "A" race strategy in May. Great job!
2013-03-18 5:20 AM
in reply to: #4663145

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Expert
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Temple, TX
Subject: RE: Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Half Marathon
I think that was a FAB race considering you didn't run much leading up to it!!  Looks like you have a plan to make it even better next time... I'd LOVE to come in closer to 2:00 rather than 2:15! 
2013-03-20 7:11 AM
in reply to: #4663145

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Regular
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Subject: RE: Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Half Marathon
Way to go Melanie! Ya did really good (9:40's) with the amount of training you had...gee maybe that's the secret!
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