So I ran the Sasha's Uneventful 1/2 Marathon with Sasha, Ted, and Jamie. Jamie and I met at Sasha's house at 6am to warm up before Sasha and Ted's warm up because we were intimidated and wanted to be ready to go. We ran 2.26 miles, then went in Sasha's house and waited around for about 10 minutes (I guess we should have run 2.75 or 3 then came to the house). Sasha let us into his home at 6:20am and we hung out in his family room. It just shows how dedicated his whole family is to running and how patient and tolerant Sarah is.
Well, let me preface the run with the fact that I went to the BYU vs. TCU night game last night. We left toward the end of the 3rd quarter because my husband is coming down with something and I was happy to bow out early to get some decent sleep, but then our 7 year old son went to the game with a school friend, they stayed for the whole game, and thus got stuck in game traffic and he got home at 12:20am, two hours after we got home. It was my first experience staying awake for a child to get home, and he is only 7 years old! If he was old enough to have a curfew he would have broken it for sure. But it shows a lack of judgement on my part that I let him go, so I have learned something. Ok, so the point is I fell asleep at about 1:30 am (was wound up) and woke up at 5:20 so less than 4 hours sleep. You know you are in trouble when you are telling yourself--"You need to fall asleep or you will crash in burn in your run tomorrow!! Go to sleep right now!! You have to relax now!! Go to sleep right now!!"
Ok, my goal was to be around 7:15 pace, which would make for a slower but very long tempo run. Well my laps seemed pretty screwy on the watch. In general they were close to the mile markers but some of the splits seemed way off. Here's the splits from the gps:
1 - 7:15, just warming up, included a stop to wait for Adam who arrived a minute late.
2 - 7:30
3 - 6:54
4 - 7:30 see what I mean about splits being screwy? In actuality we were going about 7:15 pace for miles 2-5, conversational but not full sentences, really enjoying the run, seeing the leaves falling in front of us, soaking up the experience of running with Sasha and Ted.
5 - 7:08 probably right on, we ran on the river trail toward the lake and turned around at 5.05 miles, a near crash between Jamie and Sasha? at the 180 turn around point.
6 - 6:58
7 - 6:33 yeah right, I don't think this one was that fast, at around mile 7 Sasha and Ted started doing strides. I tried to pay attention to what they were doing but my concentration started moving to trying to keep pace
8 - 7:03 see what I mean about screwy splits?
9 - 6:58 By mile 9 I am really needing some water. I brought shot blocks but didn't know how taking them without water would go, so I didn't take one. I don't run 15 miles without fuel normally so my body was starting to feel it -- or was it the pace my body was feeling? At the 9 mile marker we found we had 24 seconds (if I remember right) to catch to get the 7 minute gal for the run, so we picked it up.
10 - 6:47 in the 10th mile Jamie drops back a little and it starts to be Sasha and Ted encouraging me through the last portion of the run. I am tired and am entering race mode - giving everything I have and wondering if I am going to break
11 - 7:04 tired but hanging on to them. Sasha is giving out 100 m, 200m 1/4 mile splits
12 - 7:06 I don't think these last two splits were right. I think they were right at or under 7 min. Sasha said I could break 1:31 if I did a 6:30 and I said yeah right and just tried to hang on.
13 - 6:35 pace, but my watch showed 12.93 for the whole distance, off by quite a bit. Sasha had a 6:20 for the last mile, and they know this course really well so I'll take his word for it. I know that I surged when I could, within the last .6 or so I had strong and weak points but was able to squeak it out:
1:30:52 BABY! 6:56 ave pace, better than the SF 1/2 marathon race.
I am so grateful to Jamie who pulled me through the middle miles and Sasha and Ted who were so positive and encouraging in the last three as I tried to not fall apart.
This was definitely a race level effort from the mile 9 marker on, and probably even before that, since you need to stay relaxed and in control in a 1/2 marathon or marathon through those middle miles anyway. It's kind of embarrassing to be putting forth race level effort while the guys you are running with are relaxed and conversational, but they were great and didn't harrass me about my breathing, etc. :)
I have to say a special thank you to my husband, who got up with the kids and got the two older ones off to school, even though he stayed up until 12:30am last night, and even though he was sick, so that I could do this run. I wish I could come up more often, but am grateful for the chance to do it this time. | 