Silver Strand Half Marathon (Read 547 times)

I was up at 2:30. Finally crawled out of bed, grabbed a peice of pizza and gagged it down, chasing it with Red bull. I headed out the door at 4:30 and was at the State Beach Parking lot by 5AM and waited until 5:30 to get on a bus. It was cold but I brought a big blanket to wrap up in. Many MANY people saw the value in my choice, LOL. Found 2 of my friends but was missing Lynn. The wheelchairs, skaters, and the amputee runners went first and off we were! It's a flat fast course except for several 1/2mile+ slow gradual climbs. I started slow in hope of chasing down that ever elusive negative split. My goal was a 7:50-55 pace somewhere in the 1:43 range. Hoping for a PR. I found my groove early on and was glad I didn't have to talk to anyone. At mile 4 I took my gu. I made sure to grab a cup at every aid station and had one gulp before I tossed it. I passed Lynn at mile 7. I felt a surge coming and went with it. I steadily began passing people one at a time. Gave Lynn a high five coming back at mile 11. I picked up speed since the course had thinned. I came around that last corner and saw the finish, about .25 away and I turned it on. I felt like I was floating. We started at a beautiful ocean front park on Coronado Island. The course ran through Coronado, then along the Silver Strand, the beaches that connects the island to Imperial Beach. We then ran through some nice neighborhoods in IB, on to some Navy property where we did an out and back for miles 9-12, finishing at the IB Peir. They had great music, and BEER!!! mile times: 8:16 7:43 7:53 7:56 7:55 7:53 7:54 7:46 7:36 7:31 7:37 7:25 7:15 last .1 was a 6:52 pace some stats from my running log... Course: Silver Strand Half Marathon Distance: 13.1 miles Duration: 1:42:17 Pace: 7:49 / mile Shoe: adidas Supernova Classic (P-1) Field Placement: 191 / 1716 (11.1%) Age group: 35 – 39 Group Placement: 12 / 149 (8.1%) Gender Placement: 32 / 882 (3.6%)

Awesome Jennifer! Congrats on the great race and PR! I'm going to feel like a snail in my first big race compared to all you folks!

Nicely run race, with a very stong finish. Congrats!

I felt like I was floating.

That is so cool. I was just mentioning in another forum, that when I was a skinny kid, I could run pretty fast, and at time I felt weightless, and the running effortless. This is one of the reasons why I run, to one day get that feeling again.

Congratulations!! Nice placing too.

Nice race Jennifer- and nice faster pace on each mile from mile 4 on. Congratulations on the PR!!!

Congrats Jennifer, think you are doing great! You give us all so much motivation to run. Keep it up! Be sure to take it easy after the race, you deserve it.

thank you! tomorrow will be my first rest day since the race. Unfortunately, Sundays are supposd to be my rest days, so if I have a race I skip it and have to wait until Thurs.

Jen are you planning another marathon besides Boston soon? You're doing amazing!

yah. remember? I'm going to see you at Surf City.