Notes
I felt pretty good on Sat so I figured why not, what’s the worst that could happen?
Now that I am getting older, I am attempting to write a race report. I have read some really good ones, this report…not so much.
-It was a perfect day for a run, 58F at the end, 6mph breeze and overcast. Even a little chilly waiting for the race to start, my hands were cold.
-The course was pretty flat with no hills, it had what I would describe as 3 long inclines (more on those later). It was a run to the beach and back. I had looked at the course profile before the race and those 3 elevation changes didn’t seem like much at all, each were 30-40 ft over 0.6-0.7 mile, shouldn’t have been a problem.
-My stretch goal was 1:39:59, but I was really looking to be around 1:42:00 or so to cut 2 or 3 minutes of my PR which was the last HM I ran 3 weeks ago.
-I had been sick with a fever last Sat, and was in recovery mode with 15 easy miles this taper week.
-the night before the race, I was hungry around 9pm, so I ate half a box of S’mores flavored Shredded Wheat…never had ‘em before but they looked good in the store (I knew it then that it wasn’t a good idea to have so many). I figured they were better than eating chips. But boy did they (or the amount I ate) play tricks on my tummy. My son was out late with some friends and when he came home the dogs barked a bunch and woke me up and I couldn’t go back to sleep knowing that I had to wake up at 4:30am. Laying there awake, I realized I had made a huge mistake eating all that cereal. Alarm finally went off a couple hours later. I got my stuff together, stretched my back, had a yogurt and off I went on the hour drive. The start time was 7:30am.
-When I got there the first thing I did was visit the row of plastic houses…for as nasty as they are, these were at least just delivered and somewhat clean. I felt sooo much better after.
-I went to get my bib and shirt, then waited a bit, stretched and jogged around before the start.
-This is a small no frills race with a 5K option. The same person organized this race as the last HM I did in April, but only half the people were at this race, 156 for the HM and 101 for the 5K…to give you an idea, I would have come in 2nd if I ran the 5K.
-I started very close to the front and we were off. One dude flew outta the gate and never looked back, 1:14:39, beating the next guy by 8minutes.
-I was right where I needed to be to finish sub 1:40:00 for the first 7.5 miles, then those slight inclines started coming back to haunt me. I didn’t notice I was running down them on the way out, but considering my pace I should have known. By the time I hit the last incline at the 12th mile I was toast, after my Garmin showed an avg pace of 8:04, surprisingly mile 8 was my worst at 8:10 avg. Those last declines never seemed to appear/help me recover for the final stretch to make up any time. I felt like I was running much slower.
-These small races are weird, at the 4 mile marker 2 people passed me, one after the other, and then no one else the rest of the race. And it seemed like those were the only 2 people after the first 200 yards.
-My hamstrings were sore yesterday but are much better today.
-Considering my training (or lack of any real speed or sustained temp work) I am happy with my final time (1:42:27), I knew I wasn’t really ready for a 1:40:00 finish.
-I don’t think my cold last week or the over the top amount of cereal I ate had an effect on my result, just my genetics and poor training.