Silly me, I thought a half marathon was 13.1 miles! (Read 807 times)

I guess I missed the memo where it got bumped up to 13.45 miles. I ran the Olathe half marathon yesterday morning. My plan had been to try to hit sub 88-89% effort and try to sustain that the whole way, see what kind of time that popped out. So, in short, a controlled hard, but not normal race hard. It was very windy, oh my stars, was it windy. And the people who wrote that the course was flattish have never run the course. It wasn't flattish. Add to that the roads were in bad shape and at steep cambers where they stuck us on the side. Definitely an ache producing run. I also intended to cooldown with an additional 7 miles to bring my day to 20. This was my first of three consecutive half marathons over three weekends designed to sneak in enough 20's so I can make it through CMM. I'm not racing the halfs, but rather using them for pacing practice and even then only going fast enough sp that my recovery time is about two days as I have key track workouts every tuesday as well.I'm tacking on a 7 mile cooldown, or whatever it takes to get to 20 miles for each half. This'll give me 5 20's the 7 weeks before CMM hits.I've now done 3 consecutive 20's, 2 to go. Before three weekends ago, my longest run in 7-8 weeks had been 10 miles. SO, I went out easy and concentrated on feel. I never felt as if I was running out of my head, could hear a good effort breathing, but no real breathing trauma sounds. I was trying to hold myself back most of the way, not knowing if I was even going to be able to finish strongly, and knowing the workout was through all 13 miles , not just the first 10. Also I knew I was scrabbling daily for condition and sort of faking endurance confidence. Plus, I knew I didn't have time for race recovery, so I kept that in mind too. I had been planning on practicing aid station drinking stuff, but my stomach was squeemish from the get go, so I skipped all the aid stations entirely and relied on the fact I was well nutrited and hydrated normally.Fortunately, it was 60 degrees, so that didn't backfire on me. I had fun ,ran strongly, I'm happy with my HR data, I hit exactly where I was trying to, only problem was the course was way long. At 11 miles I was securely in 3d overall, and no chance to get 2nd, so I started dialing back to ease into recovery right then, knowing that was the smart thing to do in able to run well this week too. At 13.1, I was at 1:35, at 13.45, I was at 1:38. I finished third overall. Cooldown 6.55 was uneventful, HR stayed between 127-139, feel fine today. 7:09(172hr), 6:58(171hr), 7:10(171hr),7:06(171hr),7:13(172hr), 7:27(171hr),7:28(169hr),7:26(171hr) , 7:29(172hr),7:04(172hr),7:12(175hr),7:33(172hr),7:49(172hr) I'm content .I'd really love a flat windless course,it would be so much easier to analyze the data. Happy happy joy joy.

MS, Nice solid run! You did a great job of holding your pace throughout. Good decision on those last two miles to not kill yourself for a place that you weren't gonna catch. What was the deal with the 13.45? Did you have a Garmin on, or did the event organizers actually get the distance wrong? Cheers, Jeff

They probably measured it with their car...

Great job on the half marathon! I too am wondering about the distance "error". Was this measured with a Garmin or other GPS device? Remember, while the GPS devices are wonderful, they don't have 100% accuracy. I've found that my Garmin consistently has a slight error of about 2-3%. The distance error for your half marathon was about 2.7%. Not a bad measurement at all! The only way to get a more accurate measurement is to actually tape the course! Edit: Sorry Trent - didn't mean to step on your toes... just finished the post at the same time as you!

I've found that my Garmin consistently has a slight error of about 2-3%.

Just curious, it it ± 2~3%, or do your Garmin consistently measure one direction (high or low)?

Just curious, it it ± 2~3%, or do your Garmin consistently measure one direction (high or low)?

You weren't asking me bu I've seen it both ways. My 10-mile loop that I've measured many times, including with a wheel, is 10.05 miles. With my Garmin it's been 9.85 to 10.19. Plenty accurate for training, not for measuring race courses.

You do all realize I'm committed for my sanity to it being long right? Frank S..'s Garmin measured it at 3.41. You'd think Garmin could figure this out, after all I was not 3 miles from it's world headquarters. Plus, it overlapped almost exactly and was an out and back, doesn't that substantiate my end of it?

No. Upload your tracks to motionbased. Then share them with all of us. Let's see if your tracks really were on the road. Do your homework before speaking up in class Sam.

Stop bullying me. Ok, How do I do that? It's already uploaded to my computer, on some thingy that says TC, came with the garmin software.