Notes
Weather notes already tell you this was not going to be a fun race: 74°F ☁️ Dew pt.: 68°F | RunFeel™: (5/10) oppressive, windy 🥵 | 6.5 mi in 14 mph headwind.
After I decided to run Jacksonville instead of Palm Beach last year, because it was about 10 degree colder up there, I still had Palm Beach on my schedule for this year after deferring it. I played with the idea of taking a long, slow training run 3 weeks post Philly, but then I decided I'd rather run the half and get the run over with more quickly. That decision solidified as I saw the run was going to fall between two cool fronts. It took a bit of stress to figure out how to drop down a deferred race, but eventually I just emailed the race director directly, and she was able to change it, no problem.
Mid-December is a busy time now that I teach at the uni. It's the reason I'm also trying to get this report done before I have to get ready for another day of final office hours and grading. But I enjoyed having this past week off from classes. I did not enjoy so much that my parents planned a party the day before that meant they'd want my help, which meant I'd be on my feet a lot, but parents > a non-goal race.
This race humbled me a bit again. Realistically, I know I can "easily" run a 1:35-1:40, and a sub 1:35 is doable at some point, but the conditions would need to be right. Unlike a lot of my running peers, I know 3 weeks is enough time to recover from the marathon and capitalize on some of that fitness for some fast shorter distances. A half is not exactly short, but it's certainly shorter than a full, and I ran my last half PR 3 weeks after running Berlin--albeit I ran Berlin as a "fun run" and was at the top of my running game that season after more than a year of streaking and three consistent seasons of training. My right knee has been a bit annoying since Philly, so I taped it this week in the hopes that would help stabilize it. I also ran a "fun" holiday mile Wednesday before the race, partly due to peer pressure, partly because I wanted to see what I'm capable of in a race. Going just over 6 minutes was a bit of a confidence boost heading into this race. I had also worn my super shoes for it, which was a good test for this half.
So now that I've set the stage, let me say that a lack of pressure was a nice thing. I also noticed that the moment I started to feel pressure, I felt nausea too... so the two things are definitely connected. It's new for me, though, and something I'm going to have to work on if I don't want the same thing to happen at Glass City.
After helping my parents 6 hours with their party, I finally got off my feet. Although I usually stay over at my parents Saturday to Sunday, I went back to mine and got in bed by 11pm. Being up at 3:45, at least I got about 4:40 sleep. Did my normal morning routine, albeit a bit truncated, because a friend was coming to pick me up around 4:45 so we could carpool together. Had a waffle and a cup of coffee, put glide everywhere, since it was going to be humid, and managed not to forget anything as I tried to get things together. The nice thing of having run multiple races this cycle, is that I have a pretty good routine now. I packed a few gels and Stroop Waffles, but I never ate those waffles. I tried the Muir gel on the last piece of my breakfast waffle for fuel. That was kind of gross, and I'm not sure it helped, as I had a knot in my stomach after that through mile 3 or so.
Ze'ev picked me up and we made it to West Palm without issues. Once in the city, we did struggle a bit with parking until we decided to forgo the long line waiting at one garage and find another. Then it was really relaxed walking over to the race start, getting a small warm-up in (Ze'ev only did half a mile, I added .3 and did some dynamic stretching). We walked around a bit looking for water, because I was thirsty (yeah, it was warm and humid and I'd left my bottle in the car--which reminds me, not having to check a bag is great!), but we couldn't find any, so we decided to get in the corral. We lined up right near the front with the first pace group, which was a 1:49 half and a 3:25 marathon. I knew I'd be ahead of them, but it was a good place to line up.
The normal race start things occurred, and then we were off. I ignored my watch entirely and just tried to find a rhythm and feel controlled. I did end up sticking with the pace group for that first mile, because I figured that would not be too slow to start. I'd planned 7:30 - 8mpm for the first miles. I'd switched my watch back to auto mile laps, so it did tell me what my average miles were, which lined up pretty well with the mile markers, but that was the only time I ever looked at my watch this race. I actually like that system. It forced me to be more in tune with my body---something that seemed to work better without music too, even though I did end up turning on music, because there was little crowd support, runners were spaced out, and I was getting bored.
I felt like I had a good rhythm for the first three miles, and I was glad to see they were all just below 7:30, but inching a little faster. I'd read the day before that the first 5 miles should be easier, so I told myself to really take it easy until mile 5. I shouldn't worry about the pace as much. It felt good, and I felt like I finally was going to negative split, because I'd started so smart. However, mile 4 we had a 180, which meant that the tail wind we'd had the first 4 miles was now a substantial headwind with gusts over 20mph. That was challenging, but since I was still in zen mode, it didn't phase me. I tried to let the runners in front of me block the wind, which kind of worked.
I'd taken a gel at mile 3, since I realized I hadn't had anything since 4:30 and it was now 6:25ish and time to make sure I had fuel. I told myself to wait until mile 7 or so for the second gel. That was fine, but I'm thinking in hindsight that it was a mistake. After gel two, I felt twinges in my hamstrings (which had a bit of DOMS from the mile race) and I'm not sure what the best fueling strategy is. I took water and gatorade almost every aid station except for two. There was a lot more water than gatorade, which annoyed me as I'd have liked more gatorade, but at least he water was cool. I didn't take a gel after mile 7, because I started worrying it was messing with my gut and energy level too much.
Apropos energy, while I'd felt good the first 7 miles or so, it started lagging at mile 8. I remember before that mile saying that's where I'd be allowed to start hammering down, but by the time I got there, I didn't want to anymore. In fact, that was where things started getting hard (we were still into the wind at that point) and I also knew then that the PR was out of the question, especially when I clocked at 7:53 mile. My calves started doing little twinges now too, threatening to cramp, which is another reason I wonder if those gels were a bad idea, and I did stop around mile 9 or so, after seeing a girl do it, to stretch my calves for a second. I think it helped. Miles 9 and 10 I kind of struggled with rethinking my goals and strategy for the rest of this race. The way I was feeling, I could just totally back off. I walked through a few aid stations. But then I got a second wind somehow, maybe it was the gel I took at mile 7? and I started picking it up again. 11 and 12 were back in the 7:30s range, and I wasn't feeling so terrible. I could tell that if I kept it going, I'd still manage sub 1:40, so that because my goal and reason to keep pushing. Mile 13 was uncomfortable again, but I asked myself, who gives up in the last mile of a half? A lot do, of course, but I wasn't going to. After having just suffered through 10 miles of wanting a race to end in Philly, this was nothing. So I kind of hung on, yearning for the finish line to appear, and when it did I gave it an extra burst and sprinted through.
Obviously I still had a lot in me by the end, but I didn't care. It was a good showing in a race that didn't matter as much in weather that was 100% less than ideal (the only good thing was that by 7:30 it wasn't too sunny yet, and the wind helped prevent overheating). As I stated, I barely checked my watch during the race, but when I went to look afterwards, I was surprised by my HR in the 170s. That's anaerobic range for me. No wonder it got so hard!
I'm content with this race, and it is still my fastest half since my PR, so it's still a pretty good showing. Plus, I placed pretty well, which tells you something about the (lack of) competition, but also the weather conditions and how they got to everyone.
My left calf cramped really badly after going up a slight incline to find Ze'ev after the race. It was the kind that dropped me down and through blinding pain I tried to think about what to do to mitigate it. Luckily a fellow finisher saw me and helped put it in a non painful position until the spasms stopped. I then went to the medical tent as per his suggestion, and I was hoping for a massage or something, but all they gave me was a banana and some gatorade. I guess cramps are not high on their list of priorities though. But it hurt, and it was still very sore through the evening and almost too sore this morning to walk on. As the morning wore on (this is one day post run) it's a little better, but I definitely did a number on it. The guy who helped me was like "damn, the calf is rock hard." Through gritted teeth, I was like, "yeah, they're always too tight." Made me also think of Keen's photo post 100 miler... That's probably the most memorable part of this race, tbh.
Moving forward, I want to get back to feeling good and weekly miles in the 30s and 40s for the rest of December as I prepare for a new training plan start Jan. 8. I don't intend to do any workouts and certainly no more races-- just let the mind and body recoup from all the stresses over the past months.