WORKOUT – Elliptical – 55 mins, (next day after the race ran 6.2 easy, slow miles)
Sunday morning I got up at 5:15 and had my 3 cups of Starbucks VIAinstant coffee.
This stuff kills hotel coffee. And hotel coffee is normally so bad it could probably kill you.
Walked to the start line at 6:30 and had an Espresso Love Gu at 6:45am.
Started with my friend Reese in her corral, the 10-12 min mile corral, instead of battling the crowds to get to mine.
MISTAKE. MINE.
I would regret doing this for most of the race.
We started about 13 mins after the gun went off and for the first 6 miles I hated myself for starting so far back. All I did was dodge people and failed to get into some sort of decent pace. I’d be running a 7:47/mile and the next minute it’d be a 9 min mile because there was just no room. Around mile 6 the HILLS started so it thinned out a bit, but except for the very end, I was never in a good spot or good pace.
(What I wore. I think last year was a little colder than this year, but I wore this same Nike Drifit tee last year too so I had to bring it back.)
Miles 6-11 were steep inclines and steep declines. This is definitely not an easy course and not a PR course, but it is a fun course. At mile 10 I took my other GU. Looking back, I probably should have eaten something a little more substantial before the race because I was getting tired. Around mile 8 or 9 they were handing out orange slices and I sucked on one.
For most of the race I was really thirsty; I tried to hit up some of the hydro stations but they were so packed you had to stop to grab a cup. This just made me mad so I just bypassed the rest of them…. hence being really thirsty.
I finished in 1:47:34 – decent enough, I guess. I was tired after the race but I never felt like I was running really fast or pushing myself hard. I think it just felt weird because I hadn’t ran any hilly courses in a long time and I couldn’t for the life of me stick to any sort of pace.
POSITIVE: This was my first half marathon race 1 year ago and I shaved about 28 mins off my time.
NEGATIVE: If I had been turned my brain on before the race and started in the right corral, I think I could have ran a lot harder, faster, and happier.
