Well, my first half marathon as a race went quite well... considering my less-than-ideal training. With just six weeks of pretty consistent running, I was able to crush my goal of 1:45 and successfully hit every mile sub 8:00. I went ahead and allowed the crowd to pull me through the first couple miles too fast at 7:16 and 7:19, and I had two fairly strong miles at the end (7:21 and 7:20), but all the others in the middle were between 7:42 and 7:54. Actually, the 7:54 was mile #8 after the turnaround and into a stiff breeze - no other miles were over 7:50. The start includes one mile around FSU campus which is not done on the way back, so the turnaround point was actually at about 7.5 miles. I had gone through the halfway point at just over 50 minutes, so I ran pretty even splits overall. Our little local marathon is really stepping things up over the past few years. We had over 1,000 total entries this year in the full and half, with a surprisingly large purse too - $1,200, $800, $400, $200, $100 for top 5 men and women and a decent masters purse too ($500 for winner I believe). Top three guys all were sub 2:25 and top master was 2:42. Weather was nearly perfect with gun temp at 45 and maybe 60 when the marathoners started finishing. Wife, boychild and friends manned an aid station too, so that was cool. A really good day. |