A clydesdale no more!

After only racing a couple of 5k’s this year, I really had no idea what kind of shape I was in for a longer race.  Going into this race, I thought that 1:25 was a reasonable goal but I had my doubts.  While I was on the bus on the way up the canyon I realized that I don’t even know what pace I would need to run to get a 1:25.  I’m always overly worried about being late to races so I ended up being on the first bus which meant a lot of waiting around.  I warmed up with a little over a mile of slow running then spent the rest of the time in the POP line.  I was shivering at the starting line which is always a good sign.  Freezing at the start means perfect racing weather.  The gun went off and after making it through the initial race congestion I settled into a comfortable pace.  The first 4 miles are major downhill and I didn’t think about the pace while I was running.  I just ran at a pace that felt right.  The splits for these miles were: 6:10, 6:13, 6:16, 6:06.  The course then flattens out for the next 2 miles.  Miles 5 and 6 were 6:29, 6:25 which is what I believe my true half marathon pace is.  Miles 7 and 8 include a good little climb and I ran these in 6:39 and 6:40.  Coming down the hill I realized that the guy I was running with was JeffL from the blog and we stayed together for most of the race.  Mile 9 came in at 6:14 and I thought I was done at that point.  My legs started to hurt and I started having a lot of self doubt.  Having Jeff there really helped keep the pace honest.  At the 10 mile mark, I expected to see something close to 7:00 and was surprised to see 6:25.  I figured that if I was this tired and still able to run at a decent pace then I just need to focus on my leg turnover and not think about anything else.  Miles 11, 12 and 13 were 6:21, 6:25, 6:20 with the final 0.1 at 5:28/mile.  I was super tired and had to keep reminding myself to relax the form but was able to maintain a good pace.  Final time was 1:23:30 which is a PR by 29 seconds.  My first PR at any distance in almost 2 years.  I finished in 17th place overall and 3rd in my age group.  I am really happy with the effort.  Even though I felt good at the finish I remember thinking during the race that I could not move my legs faster than they were going.  I hung around for awhile and watched a lot of the finishers come in because I had a “friend” that was running and I wanted to see her finish.

Almost forgot to mention that  I thought the organization was a lot better this year.  I know Curt has a bad reputation for how he runs his races but other than the usual communication issues and messy start he did a great job this year.  The atmosphere at the finish was great.