Notes
Run for the Cake (Unofficial) 1/2 Marathon
Charlotte Sun Meet-up Long Run (turned into 1/2 Marathon). 34 runners. Wanted to use this a dry run. Goal was to run first 1/2 of this at 8-8:15 pace, and then drop it to 7:45 pace for the last 1/2 given tough workout on Friday (not sure how I recovered) & yesterday's run (my calves were very sore last nite and this morning after running w/Newtons and running what I thought was 8:20 recovery pace at 7:48 pace).
Freezing at the start. Ran with Han. Since my Garmin had no idea of pace. Immediately a whole bunch of people ran ahead including many of whom I suspected were racing this. Was talking w/Han as we ran along (he did not wear gloves & my hands were freezing w/gloves over the first 3 miles). After about 2 miles and thinking we were moving along at 8 min pace, I was slowing things down. As we hit the dirt portion of the greenway (miles 4-5), we began to ran up and thru the seven people who had been about 30 yards ahead of us prior to this. Felt fine. Swung up 51 to the 1/2 way point. I pushed the pace at this point (Han really accelerated and began to run away). I ran by two others as I we got back onto the greenway. Mile 9 is where I started to feel the runs over the past two days. As I hit mile 10, I kept hearing someone running up on me, it gets closer, lounder...its Han (he had disappeared out of view when I saw him last), I told him I was not feeling great (and this point my stomach is sloshing), he says "we were running 7:30's" (this didn't dawn on me until I worked out the splits post-run and realized we were running alot quicker vs. goal). Over the final 2.75 miles I Gallowalked as I was getting close to being sick to my stomach.
Lessons learned:
- can't carry my water (24 oz) water bottle - its like carrying a 2 lb wt which after a while gets heavy (this produced the side cramp & I can't use it in a race).
- don't eat cereal & milk 45 minutes prior to start time.
- don't push the pace at the 1/2 way point but more like 4 miles or 5k to go.
- felt frozen at the 8-9 mile mark (ran w/shorts, not sure what I can here as if I run w/sweats or tights I will overheat).