Homestead Half Marathon
Half the course was road, the other half was the trail along Deer Creek Reservoir. It was a very tough course with many hills and the wind was pretty rough. The first 3 miles were somewhat downhill, the next 3 quite uphill, and then we came back. So it was an out and back course. The last 3 miles uphill with some wind in the face were not real fun. There was about 4 different climbs of well over 100 ft in this run and another 5 or 6 climbs of over 50 feet. It was tough. The race is also run in Midway at the Homestead Resort, about 6000 feet.
I ran with another guy for the first 5 miles. We hit 3 in 18:00 -- a definite surprise for me, as I was taking it easy and my goal was to run 6:15-6:30 on the roads and 6:30-7:00 on the trails. I let him lead through 5 miles, and then passed him at the 5 after the pace slowed to over 7:00 (although that mile gained about 250 feet of elevation I was told later)
I hit the halfway mark in 42:45 -- right about 6:30 where I wanted to be. I felt pretty good and ran the next couple hard to put a gap on the guy behind me. I had about a :30 second lead at halfway. There was a huge uphill followed by some nice downhill, then 3 miles of pavement all with a steady uphill grade to the finish. The last 2 miles were hell for me, my legs were junk and I was struggling to run 6:30 on the pavement. I ended up running the 2nd half in 42:30 (15 second negative split). It was decent. I know that I'm not yet in very good shape.
That said, I won the race and was happy with how I ran, especially on the hills and from 7-10 I was pretty strong. My pace was solid considering the course and conditions.
15 miles total -- didn't have it in me for the long cooldown today. | 