Notes
well i'm not sure how to characterize this race; i feel like it was the most painful racing experience of my life, but was also by far the most exciting. I never expected to have an interest in Half Marathons, but I am very interested in at least doing this one again.
It took me 10 seconds to get to the line from corral A and even then I was getting a little antsy as I had to keep my stride chopped until the road widened about 300-400 meters into it. after that I opened up very cautiously and very slowly started passing large numbers of people. i was very concerned about going out too fast like 5:30 and i wanted to keep the first mile close to 6. I looked at the people next to me and thought they were running slow so i was afraid i'd end up with a 7 min mile so I sped up and passed more people and more quickly. I managed to hit the mile at 5:50 feeling very relaxed.
i loved the way the mile markers were set in this race because you could see them from 1-2 minutes away which made it feel like they were coming all the time. I caught up to Travis Lozier (14:30 5k guy in college) in the 2nd mile and he was wanting to run sub 6 (he did 5:54 pace) we chatted but i couldn't help but keep passing people. I hit the 2nd mile in 5:40 and made a conscious effort to not speed up.
3rd mile was more of the same, i was locked into an awesome rhythm as my stride just floated along and I continued to pass people in droves while running another 5:40 (5k split was 17:45 I think.)
after the 3rd mile I think I started hitting some 5:35s but I really had a hard time remembering all my splits and I was only focused on staying sub 6 as my goal was 1:18. during the 4th mile i developed a side stitch, i had gotten a little lazy with my posture so i refocused and breathed very deeply and slowly and it went away within a mile. I have to admit this entire race I probably was on about 3 steps for every inhale and exhale with ease. i never felt out of breath or tired.
after 4 miles i could feel my low calf or high achilles start to get tight. i didn't let it bother me and just kept knocking off the same type of splits. just before entering the track i could also feel my left foot start to develop a blood blister, the track was a hard part but i really used it as a big change up for me. prior that point i was really lifted in sprits by all the bands and crowds and even just looking up and seeing the 20 or so hot air balloons, but during the track i decided to get more interactive with the crowd by talking and giving long lines of 5s and just tried to enjoy the experience. that actually got me rolling as my blisters and calfs got much much worse.
getting off the track my calves finally were gone, they locked up at mile 9 and my blisters were on each feet and clearly the size of several quarters each. we had a series of turns that just killed my feet and i was forced to take baby steps on every turn. my stride was locked into a size of a bicycle motion as i couldnt' get my feet to move quite right. i focused on keeping my hips low so i could just speed up my stride rate to balance for my loss of length. there had a been a guy who i had battled with from mile 6-10 that kept passing me and then i'd pass him back and so on who was still hanging around. under normal circumstances i would have given in after 2 or 3 tries to drop him, but we went through 6 or 7 and every time i just had more and more fun with it, my attitude was so different for this race. the blisters the calfs the competition, nothing phased my attitude which was just having a lot of fun, and I kept hammering, so with 5k to go I dropped the guy for good and passed a few more people.
The last mile was the hardest as I had been catching up to John Nay (4:37 miler in the 7th grade!! - and college teammate) but my stride was almost non existant and the final down hill hurt me a lot, but i kept my rhythm and finished it well in 42nd and 1:14:06 on the chip time.
overall i was so happy with this race as I was aggressive and confident and strong mentally the entire race. I was truly blessed with a toughness I 've experienced before as it never seemed to matter how much pain i was in, i continued to stay extremely relaxed and confident and kept passing people. the entire week of a buildup was huge as i did everything i wanted to and my hamstring continued to get healthier, (it never bothered me once in the race).
I had complete calmness and confidence going into this race and was not nervous at any point ever the entire week, in fact i barely even thought about the race at all.
despite running much faster than i thought i could; i now know i could do much more; i think without the huge blisters and calf strain i might have broken 1:13 in this race; also I still did a 100 mile week - i'm sure even just a 70 mile week would make a big difference, also i never had the chance to do the race specific preparation i was planning because my hamstring was getting to the point of injury just 3 weeks ago, and has only been getting better a little each day for the last 3 weeks; and then finally it turns out I had the flu. It made itself known to me on sunday night (this is monday and i'm work - although i just ran 9 miles this morning anyway) but I apparently carried the flu with me in this race and that may have been the reason my calfs tightened up in the first place. I do seriously hope that no one else gets sick from me though and i'm actually healthy enough to do things as i only felt sick for about 5-6 hours, but for fear of being contagious i'm staying home to keep everyone else healthy.
all those things considered i really would like to try one of these again - not sure when other than this mini because it was amazing the workers did a fantastic job. but i really feel i can go much faster given a nice long healthy build up. so if i have another healthy dedicated year - who knows maybe 1:10?