Zeitgeist Half Marathon - Boise - 5th place - 1:21:20
This is an excellent race on a challenging, but beautiful course. The event has grown to over 1,000 participants and is well organized and a lot of fun. I was pleased with the effort and race execution today. It has been a challenging last few weeks of life, so I haven't run much. I decided to run the race Friday night and took a conservative approach.
The morning weather was brisk, but excellent for racing. I got in a little stretching, some jogging and toed the line. First mile is relatively flat and I went through in 6:02. Then came the 2 mile and 650' climb up Seaman's Gulch Rd. I planned to keep it relatively easy and stay within my threshold. First and second place were long gone by this point, and the pack of 3 runners ahead of me pulled a bit out of reach, but I did distance myself from a few others up the climb. Mile 2 in 6:46 and mile 3 in 7:14.
The course drops into Hidden Springs and I dropped a 5:32 and 5:40 while making up some time on 4th and 5th places. Mile 6 is rolling uphill and I maintained my place with a 6:11. Mile 7 is another rolling uphill (6:19) before the big climb to the summit of Cartright Rd at 3350'. Mile 8 passed in 7:05 as I really scaled it back on the climb, saving some strength for the downhill last 5 miles. Next time I could probably push a bit more here, but I was conservative, as I had planned.
I finished the climb, hit a steep downhill onto the partially paved Pierce Park Rd and then started cruising. Mile 9 was a 6:24 due to the summit climb, but miles 10 and 11 were 5:35 and 5:24. I was rolling pretty good here, and passed a runner with a blown out calf (been there too) to move into 5th place. Mile 12 was flat and I maintained a 5:53. I started to hurt a little here and conceded I wouldn't catch 4th place (Jesse Zentz, former Big Sky Champion miler from University of Montana). Mile 13 was 6:06 with one last short hill and a nice downhill to the finish.
I ran well and competed hard. For the lack of sleep, sickness and family stress that's been going on, I am happy. Most people figure this course is about 4-5 minutes slower than a flat half, so my time was right where it should have been. On a great day I could have been 3rd, but for today, this was alright.
Post race my left foot is killing me. It's the top of the foot, like my laces were too tight. This has been hurting a bit for the last week or two but it's bad right now. I am going to take a week off and let it heal. | 