Big Lake Half - Realistic Goal! (Read 645 times)

Quick update: score one for McMillan. I crushed my expectations and ran a 1:26:45! I am thrilled with that. Full report when I have more time, but I'll just post the mile splits so you experienced people who run even splits can have a good giggle. 6:32, 6:50, 7:03, 7:08, 7:01, 6:47, 6:23, 6:25, 6:45, 6:23, 6:16, 6:15, 5:52

I don't know why anyone would giggle at those splits, the first mile you were a little excited but in control, miles 2-6 were a bit conservative, then you sped up in the 2nd half of the race, looks like very good pacing to me. Unless you're running on a track you cannot expect to have perfectly even splits throughout a race, and even then your splits won't be absolutely the same every lap.

Way to go Jules! I think I would just collapse after 10 miles in 85 degree heat. I got lucky with mid 50's, sun, and a great course. Oh, and if I was in the same country, I would definitely take you up on the beer... I mean, who can turn down a free beer?! Thanks for all the encouragement - it was this board that convinced me to shoot for more than just sub 1:30. Anyways, here's a slightly more detailed race report: Woke up at 5:15, which is awesome, because I have trouble being awake at 8am - nevertheless, I was on the road with iced coffee in hand by 6, and very nearly pulled over at 6:15 when I went blowing by a speed trap at 80. Fortunately the car behind me was actually passing me at that point, so I got a mulligan (and went from half asleep to wide awake pretty damn fast). Met up with friends running it at the race start, in particular Dave who also had never run a half before, but was also shooting for sub 1:30. We planned to run the whole race together unless someone cracked. He was much better trained than me for this (35m/week vs 25m/week), but I've been running for a whole year now, so I had the edge in experience The plan was to run 6:45-6:50 miles for the first 5-6 and then reevaluate from there. I decided to go with some racing flats I picked up a couple weeks ago: Mizuno Ronin. I had only taken them out twice to break them in, so this would be the real test. Also, I've never worn flats before this pair, so I was curious to see how much they'd help. Started at the front, and got going in a hurry! I looked at my garmin at about a 1/4 mile and saw a number starting with 5 for the pace, and, uh, realized that might be a little on the fast side. We settled in at a more reasonable pace, and hit the first mile in... 5:58? Well, no. Apparently the clocks at the mile markers were quite a bit off so I stuck with my Garmin for split times (6:32 first mile seemed more reasonable.) At that point I felt great and got to chatting a little with my neighbors - Laurie had just run Boston, and was a little beat up, but was also shooting for 1:30. It was pretty breezy, so Dave, Laurie, myself, and a big guy (I refer to him as "Windblocker" since I never caught his name) decided to work together. We were running pretty comfortably at this point with Windblocker doing most of the work up front, but after 4-5 miles I realized we had fallen way off of pace, so Dave and I went with the next guy who passed us - a teenager wearing army pattern cargo shorts and no shirt. Around this point I realized I was getting a massive blister from my left foot sliding a little bit in my new shoes. This bothered me for the whole race. At some point here, we blew through a water stop with a Disco theme. They were blaring "It's Raining Men" which was awesome, and also shooting bubbles across the course which I was convinced I was going to inhale and choke on. Grabbed some water here, spilling most of it on myself before choking down a couple sips (this would be a recurring theme... I didn't figure out the whole drinking and running thing until the last couple water stops). We coasted the sweet downhill to the turnaround where were told that there were no more hills, promptly turned the corner and went up the steepest hill on the course. Dave was definitely stronger on hills, so I just tried to stay near him and then catch up on downhills. We had picked up speed and were slowly picking people off after the halfway point. I started to feel tired around mile 9 and Dave briefly pulled away, but he had to tie his shoe and I caught back up. Mile 11-12 blurred together as we started cranking and I started feeling it. We were still reeling people in one or two at a time, and just blowing by them. Mile 13 was just a lot of pain - the blister on my left foot was killing me, and I was really working hard. I pulled away from Dave with about .5m left, and just went for it. Predictably the announcer screwed up my name... seriously, how hard is Gifford to pronounce?! 1:26:45 with a smoking fast (for me) finishing mile of 5:52 ( I didn't get a .1m split). Dave finished some 10 seconds behind me - we managed to pull off 2nd/3rd in our age group since two guys ahead of us got overall awards. Not bad for our first half! Awards were pretty cool looking bottles of maple syrup which I have no idea how to open since it looks like the cover is welded on (too bad, cause I want the syrup!). Overall 28/1200, 4th/98 in 25-29.

As I wrote before, nice job!!! Enjoy this one.

Right here we go, we didn't have chips so my race time was 1:35:24 which is exactly 6 minutes slower than my PB on the same course in 2003. But in 2003 with a smaller field I came 98th, this year I came 105th so it shows how much the temperature kicked in. 860 finished but rumour has it around 200 either didn't race or DNF'd, I came 3rd out of 24 in my age group and got "runner of the day" from my club mainly because three out of the four club members in front of me ( two by less than 10 seconds ) were at least 20 years younger . At least four people went to hospital and one guy was on a drip for half an hour and was still out cold. I'm just looking for a flat cool half somewhere.