I came into this race kind of ambivalent as to my goals for it. I have never run a half marathon, or until little over a month ago anything more than the 6.6 I had to do in MiamiMan in November. Plus, because I never know what my training plan will look like more than a week out, I wasn't sure how to treat it-like a training run or like a race.
Pretty much the only reason I signed up for the half marathon was do that when Rev3 comes around in June, I will be confident that I can do the run distance. But then I ran with Nate on Sunday. He asked me about a goal time (which I hadn't even thought about - I was planning on doing nice and easy 10:30 or 11 minute miles. Nate said I should aim for under 2 hours (averaging 9:09 per mile). Of course I laughed.
I woke up this morning tired (duh, 5:30 bites) especially after the House tv marathon that I stayed up to watch. Still, got ready, had coffee, walked the dog, and headed out to Central Park. I had misread the times and was neurotically worried that I wouldn't be able to drop my things off before the race started. It turned out I had plenty of time, and even had a nice chat with an older runner in my corral, while jumping a bit to try to keep warm. (And as apparently it's okay to speak about bodily functions on triathlon blogs... I was worried that I hadn't had a meaningful potty moment before the race. Usually before I run my body knows that it needs to commune with the toilet. No such luck this morning. I was hoping there would be a porto-john around when the time came.)
And the we were off. Because I knocked out and lost the pin in my Garmin, I had to run "naked". No constant pacing, not checking my heart rate- I didn't even know my official start time. Actually, it was naked in another way as well. I've started doing my short runs without music, and did my long run last Sunday with Nate without music, so I figured that it would be nice to try it today as well.
Anyway, the first couple of miles, everybody was full of energy, jockeying for position, weaving I'm and out of people. Mostly that seemed like an enormous waste of energy to me. Since I wasn't plugged in, I decided to find a "rabbit" who could pace me. I used the same girl until mile 4,all the while yelling at myself to slow down ad I passes the mile markers. I was coming in at under 9 per and knew I couldn't sustain that for 13.1. At the next aid station she dropped off to get a drink, and I found another rabbit- yellow sports tank ahead of me by 20 meters. Her pace seemed to work for me for the next 2-3 miles, but I think after that I started feeling the toll of pushing my pace to keep up with her. She started inching away, and I'd only see flashes of her tank top. So I tried to find someone else.
Using a couple of different people, I maintained something of a pace while trying to respect what my body was telling me. I seemed to still be on the 9 minute or so pace and figured that as long as I was feeling good I'd stick to the pace so that if I needed to ease off a little I'd still come in at under 2 hours.
At just before the 7-mile mark, it was time to break out the Clif Shots. It was my first time with them, and I think that they might not be the best option. They tasted fine, but were super-sticky in my mouth, and the only thing I had to drink was Accelerade. Still, they did the job, and over the next 3 miles I finished off all of them.
We left the park after mile 8, running down 7th Avenue to 42nd street. This part of the run was cool just because of where we were running, plus there were some fun bands along the route. At 42nd we turned west toward the Hudson, and as we approached the 15k mark, I passed yellow tank girl!
Running on the Westside highway was kind of cool. I think it always is when traffic is stopped for a race. Add to that the guys singing with their guitars, samba dancers and other bands, and it was an entertaining stretch. The surface, though, was a lot harder in my legs than the Central Park asphalt.
At mile 10 I said to myself, "okay, forget what you just did. It's a 5k from here on out. I tried to dig deep and find some energy reserves- kind of hard when I was rapidly approaching the outer limits of distance that I've run, oh and at 2 minutes per mile slower than what I was doing today! But on I went. Plenty of distractions along the way, between the music, and the mile an km markers. The big clock was at 1:56:28 when I crossed. After a hug with Bobby/cheer bear, picking up the medal an. My stuff, I did some quick stretches and headed home for a meal and a nap.
My time turned out to be 1:52:59. That comes to 8:38 minute miles. Wow! I was stunned!
And of course, what better way to top off the day than by taking a flying trapeze class? Fun class, and inching closer to throwing the layout out of lines.
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