Notes
CU Half Marathon
82:47 Officially. 56th Overall.
Wow, what a morning. Signed up for this race hoping it would be an energy jolt to my training and get me moving back into good fitness after really struggling with motivation since covid shut everything down a few years back. Ended up not really being the immediate boost I had hoped for, but slowly, surely, I have gotten into okay running shape these part few months. No workouts completed, but a semi-consistent schedule of 5-6 days a week set me up to outperform my expectations, even if I'm a fair bit behind where I was last time I did this race in 2019. I think I'm "in shape to get in shape" now, and feel like post-race I have my head in a good place with running. A big key will be more social running, which keeps me honest and motivated to train.
As for the race, I really went in with zero expectations. I could have run anywhere from what I did today to a hair under 90' and I would have been happy. Also first effort in Vaporflys/Super Shoes, and wow, I guess the whole world wasn't lying. They certainly helped me carry momentum through the race and probably helped mask the lack of training volume, as I felt good pretty much the whole way.
Set off and my plan was to go out very conservatively, 6:35-6:40s through the first few miles. Found a group of 4 guys who were joking and laughing and said they were shooting for sub85, and I tucked in behind them. 6:30s quickly down shifted into 6:20s as we went through Urbana, but I was feeling good. Caught a downhill around 6 and just let it flow and then I started pulling the group along. Probably got a bit carried away from 7-9, but without any expectations, I just wanted to let it ride. Going through Statues, the group broke up and one of the guys was hanging with me. We started to climb the ladder, as there was > 10 people within a minute or two running in no mans land. Picked people off heading up Race, when I ran my first sub 6 mile since 2021 lol. I passed so many people on this stretch and just felt invincible. Spencer Nelson was running with me here, and he gave me a nice boost of energy until he laid down the hammer and crushed it in. Once the race merged with the 10K and I had to start weaving between folks, I lost a bit of momentum and started to hurt pretty good. Let off the gas a bit and was happy to just ride it in. A few people who I'd passed had apparently stuck on my tail and re-passed me in the last half mile, but I wasn't too upset by it, I was more just ecstatic about how this went. I hadn't thought sub 83 was in the cards, but I crushed this run today. Felt very in control the whole way and this was a ton of fun. Obviously, I'm capable of much more, but for the first time in a while, I'm excited to try and maybe be fast again.