Well, I made it through my first half.  A little more walking than I would have hoped, but I left myself plenty of room for improvement.  This was the 2^nd annual Kennebec Rail Trial half in Augusta , ME.  It doubled in size from last year.  The gory details:

142 of 158 OA, 81/85 Men, 16/16 AG  2:28:00 11:18 pace

I think this was a fast race—60% or so went under 2 hours. 

 

My goals were pretty simple;

1.     Finish—done

2.    Finish not DFL—done, but a lot closer than I’d hoped.

3.    Finish under 11:00 pace—close, but no cigar

4.    Finish under 10:00 pace—not even close

So, two out of four isn’t a bad start.  I started with the Higdon 12 week novice half plan in late January, hoping to make it to the Westfield half (and run the same race with CNY) in early April.  Bad timing and a few weeks off killed that, so I found the Augusta half and decided it would be a good fit and it would give us an excuse to head to Maine for the weekend.  I managed to mostly complete the plan except that I ended up only a couple of 9 milers, instead of the 10 that was suggested.  The X-T and strength work that the plan includes helped quite a bit.

 

I headed north after work and stopped to buy the makings of a good pasta dinner and headed to bed early.  DW had a party with some of her friends Saturday, so she stayed home and we both get to do something we like.  The race started at 7:30 and was an hour north of our camp, so I had to depart at 5:30 to make sure I had enough time to get lost at least once and still have enough time to check in and start on time.  I made sure to use the getting confused time—Augusta had one of the more confusing rotaries I’ve ever been through.  And I’ve been trained for 30 years on Boston rotaries.

 

Checkin was simple and they gave out a very nice short sleeve tech shirt in a goody bag that was a reusable grocery bag—nice touch.  I hadn’t realized that there was a 5K as part of this, so the crowd looked huge.  They started 5 minutes after us and the faster ones were passing us on the way to their turnaround.  The race started right next to an old fort, so we got sent on our way with a cannon blast.  No doubt about when to start running.  After about a half mile, I met up with Jody, who was running the same pace as I was hoping for –we ran together until just before the 9 mile mark when my cranky knee that has popped up for the last couple of long runs at about the same point did it again.  Miles 9, 11, and 12 were sort of the death march variety with a couple of long walks, but I managed to run in the last mile at a decent pace.  But I was spending so much time watching the miles go up so slowly on my Garmin, I ended up taking it off and sticking it in my pocket for the last couple of miles.

 

This was a very well organized race with a big contingent of very enthusiastic volunteers.  There were 5 water stations with both water and Gatorade.  It was the standard after race fare, but there was plenty of it and very pleasantly served.  I made sure that I drank at each one, plus I carried a water bottle.  It was pretty cool, but humid, so I cycled a lot of liquid.  I had a few of my Swedish fish along the way.

 

I would recommend this race to anyone in the area.  The course was an out and back on mostly paved and a bit of gravel along the Kennebec river and railroad tracks.  Nothing major in the way of hills, but enough change to keep it interesting.  This was a chip race, but only for the end.  Garmin said that I did 2:26:46 but only 13.03 miles.  It was a few seconds to the start, a couple of stretch stops and a little bit of time to get the garmin out of my pocket and hit the stop button.

 

The best part of this race was that after the drive back, I get to dive in the lake and cool off.  Don’t get to do that at a lot of races.  oh, yeah, then I took a kayak out to check on the loons on our little island.  they're still there.  (imagine a somewhat fuzzy picture of a loon here--can't seem to paste it in  )

 

 Fashion report—gold brooks, navy NB shorts, red top, and gold Bean running hat (it was Maine, after all)

 

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and for all the encouragement that I’ve been getting from you all for so long.  I’m excited to be able to be able to wear a real half shirt.

eta paragraph breaks. 

congrats - you did it - yeah!  the next one will be easier -

 

how about joining us in york maine on the 4th?  marj

Congrats Kevin, nice job!

 

Sorry about the knee getting wonky on you but way to persevere!

Good report Stumpy,

 Sounds like you enjoyed the experiance and are ready to do another.

Its nice to achieve a long term goal once in a while isn't it ?

 

Larry

Way to go Stumpy! (See any ferrets applauding? Hope so! )

Good work toward your goal even with a schedule adjustment earlier in the year. So now that you've gotten this under your belt---see you in Westfield in 2011?

Sounds like a great event. Congratulations!

Yay, nice to have this one under your belt. I know the time wasn't what you wanted, but you finished and learned a lot about this race distance. I'm sure your next half will be much more to your satisfaction.

...nice racing stumpy//............you ran with what you had that day...........

 

enjoyed the RR

You did it!  That was a fast race--I'm really surprised there weren't more folks behind you. 

It is too bad your knee was acting up.  I loved the description of before and after, especially the loons.

 

This is the first of many, I'm sure.  Glad the shirt's a good one you can enjoy wearing.  It's an accomplishment!

 

big grins and a happy wave,

A