My first half marathon!!! Woop! I was happy that i was able to run it with the girly friend. The morning went well. It was pretty cold though. We hopped in the bus and drove up to the starting line. When we got up there we were waiting for about 20 minutes to use the bathroom. It was great when they said they were about to start the race and we still hadn't gone. Becca ran in before me and went in world record time. I think she was in there for shorter time than all the guys. I went in and went as fast as humanly possible. I only was able to go numero 1 though. As I came out I saw that there was no one there and they were already running.
BB was sweet and was waiting for me at the starting line. I was thinking, "AHH they are going!" and started running by her quite rude-like and almost didn't give her a hug. Luckily I stopped and did :) At this point we were starting about a minute behind everyone else but it didn't really matter.
I had my Westminster jersey on and it was still quite cold but I was ok. I looked ahead and saw the the person in the lead was a lady. She was a good distance ahead. I figured I would just chill and see what happened. I looked at my watch and saw I was an AP of 6:28 which was extremely comfortable so I just stayed there. The upside to start a minute after everyone else was that you got to pass a bunch of people on your way up to the front. At about mile 3 I was in 10th place I think. Then we got to the mother beast hill. This thing was like straight up for a half a mile or more. My pace dropped to about 8 mins but I passed the last two people before the leader on it.
Once we got over the top, we understood why they called it the Hurricane Half Marathon. We got hit with a billion MPH of wind. The leader actually blown away and I never saw her again... Okay that's not true but I wouldn't have been surprised. We started downhill and I caught up to the leader. We were at about mile 6. She was quite beastly beating all the men. I said, "Windy." She said, "Yeah, it sucks!" That was the extent of our conversation. There were a couple of turns and the mile markers were getting worse and worse. They were about a tenth of a mile off. My watch would beep and I would hit the mile marker about 40 seconds after.
At close to mile 10 I looked back and saw that she was about 70 meters behind me still. I just relaxed and kept going. I wish I had gone to the bathroom. At about mile 6, 9, and 11 I felt a huge urge to go. Luckily I was able to hold it back (probably not the best). I took my gel at mile 7 and grabbed my only sip of water at the aid station. I wasn't thirsty during the race. Once we got into Hurricane my pace decreased to about 6:10. I felt really good actually. I just opened up my stride. At mile 12 I was like... Yes! Came around the corner and saw some cones. I didn't think that would be the finish because it was too close. I curved at the cones into the finish line at about 13.01 miles. They had a cool finish tape for me to cross through too. It was a super fun race!
BB came through about 15 minutes after first in her age group :) :) I got some gift certificates but I found out that I can only use 2 of them in Hurricane... Great. Oh well, I enjoyed it thoroughly. The course was pretty tough with the hill and the wind. There wasn't too much downhill except for after the big one. You can probably subtract a good 5-10 minutes from your time on this one for another half.
My watch showed 13.03 miles at 1:24:50 with an AP of 6:30.
My splits: 6:28, 6:28, 6:36, 6:24, 6:42, 7:24 (Beast hill), 6:28, 6:24, 6:38, 6:30, 6:18, 6:10, 6:05
I felt really good about how I raced this. I was unsure as to how I would do so Just went out conservatively. Then I was able to up my pace in the last 3 miles and finish strong :) | 