This was my first attempt and semi-long distance racing. I set a 4 month training program beforehand and I tried to execute it. However, I was traveling like crazy and I missed too many runs including a couple of weekend long runs. I also made one bad mistake on the morning of the race - I drank way too much. In the first 6-7 miles I had the feeling I need to pee. By mile 7 I was about to explode. There were no porta-johns along the course. I finally found a nice bush to go behing and literally peed for one long minute. It was in the middle of a hill so I had trouble getting back into pace. Another bad thig was that I was too excited the days before and the night before I slept for less than 5 hours. Summing all this I had a good run up to mile 11. from that point I was barely moving. My pace fell from a 7:45-7:55 pace to 9:10-9:20 pace! I picked up at the end but it was really a disappointing finish. Over all I felt I could easily run it 3 minutes faster (1 minute lost for pee and one minute for each of the last two miles).
The race was good for learning my lesson. But if my goal is to BQ, then even a 3 minutes less (i.e a 1:42 1/2 marathon) is not enough for may age group. I will somehow need to get closer to a 1:30 or 1:35 1/2 marathon so I can do a 3:20 marathon. That's the goal.
Here are my splits:
mile pace
1 7:10
2 7:31
3&4 7:35 (missed mile mark 3)
5 7:55 (includes water break)
6 7:54
7 7:41
8 9:06 (had to pee in the middle of a climb)
9 8:06
10&11 7:49 (was back in the grove)
12 9:02 (fatigue)
13 8:21 | 