half marathon official time 1:42:51.4 / 7:51 avg.  (my garmin actually came up with exactly 13.12 miles)

last thursday i signed up for this half because i needed a race for the month of may. it was close by my work, and run on a parkway that i use a lot in the winter - so why not. i didn't expect to pr today but i ended up beating my best half by 47 seconds. the last half i ran was the salt lake half in april of 2011 (which is where i got my previous pr). at my age and ability, i'll take a pr, no matter how small!

sleep last night was ridiculous. apparently the universe prefers i don't sleep but 2 or 3 hours the night before a race. a good book kept me up later than usual. then shortly after falling asleep i awoke to mr. constipation knocking on the back door, which is always good for about an hour or so of work. after that i was just restlessly tossing and turning, stressing about how much sleep i wasn't getting. when i finally did fall asleep i had a dream that i slept through my alarm and didn't make it to the race. good stuff.

it was a relief to finally get up and get going. i ate a half banana, coffee and water before leaving the house. i drove to a park about 2.6 miles from the starting line of the half, parked there and ran a slow warmup - along the course. there were pop's set up along the way so i had a good mid-warmup session. no lines. in fact i'm sure i was the first one to use the facility and was definitely dwelling in the land of the freshy fresh. i got to the start (at jensen park) with about ten minutes to spare.

the whole course is pretty flat. the first couple of miles felt great (7:31, 7:33), which was a relief. there was a runner off my left shoulder for those miles, who i'll refer to as "slappy" because of the volume of his foot strike, whereas he could refer to me as "the breather" because of the volume of my...breathing. he finally passed me around mile 3. i glanced at him and he looked to be maybe a couple of years older than me. i stayed with him for mile 3 (7:41), and throughout the next 7 miles we would trade places.  there was a young couple who i'll call "the strollers" because though they passed me and stayed ahead of me all the way to the finish, they were chatting away the whole time and looked like they were merely on a stroll through the park. meanwhile i was working hard to keep my pace below 8 minutes per mile.

so there we were, slappy and the breather, working our tired old bodies through the miles. splits for miles 4 through 9: 7:50, 7:34, 7:51, 7:53, 7:52, 7:54. there was a 180 degree turn around just before mile 7 - before the leaders came by i briefly entertained the thought that i might get an age group placing, i knew there were only twenty or so runners ahead of me, and i figured ol' slappy and i were the only oldsters up front. then i was duly mocked by observing, as the leaders passed, that 5 out of the first 7 racers looked to be in my age group! lol! i was having a good chuckle over that. it was in mile 10 (8:11) where my mind started to get the better of me. it was at this point my good friend slappy (we hadn't spoken a word to each other, until after the race) began to widen the gap and pull slowly away. he got about 20 yards ahead, and there he stayed all the way to the finish. i was still feeling intellectually challenged during miles 11 and 12, and limiting my pace to 8:12, 8:08. the last mile is always easy to accept and i ran 7:50, the final .12 showed up as a 6:31 pace on the garmin, so i must have kicked in to finish.

i spent about ten minutes after the race chatting with Cathy while hydrating (i hadn't taken any fluids during the race). then ran slowly 2.6 miles back to my car. i was pleased to feel pretty good during the jog back. all in all i got some good miles today, an accidental pr, and a solid workout.

Striders always puts on a good race -

WT 63.7 miles

one fifty-five