Today was The Other Half, the October half marathon event in Moab. I've been wanting to run this race since it started a few years back, but never had the chance due to my marathoning habit. Since I was not in shape to do a marathon, this year was the year to try it out. I was looking forward to running one of the few "fair" half marathon courses in Utah. By "fair", I mean, "not a screaming downhill". The course profile shows easy rollers during the first 6 miles, and then some bigger hills during the last 7 miles. All in all, there is no net elevation change on the point-to-point course.
My original goal was to break 1:12, break the course record, and win the race. However my shin injury messed up those plans. Some fun stats: in the last three weeks I've logged a total of 27 miles running. And 12 of those came in one trail run. So that comes out to an average of just over 1 mile/day, about a half mile/day if you eliminate the trail run, which was done at about 12 min/mile pace. This did not give me confidence. What did give me some confidence was that before my injury, I was training very well, logging good overall mileage, and completing high-quality workouts. And although I could not run during the month of October, I put in the equivalent time on the elliptical (and quite a few buckets of sweat). But I doubted the effectiveness of elliptical training compared to running, and was a bit nervous about my fitness. And was more than a bit nervous about my shin and my ability to even finish the race. Think of it this way: I not run a half marathon worth of distance combined in the last two weeks, and now I wanted to run a half marathon continuously, at 5:30/mile pace? Yup, I was a bit nervous.
I didn't even bother testing the shin on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. It was quite a taper for a half marathon, especially considering I don't even believe in tapers. I was not sure of my fitness, I was not sure of my health, but I was sure that I would be fresh!
Sunday morning rolled around. I got up at 5:45AM, ate an apple, a homemade power bar, and a Larabar. I left our hotel room and walked over to the bus pickup area. Occasionally I would jog for about 20 meters, but decided to save a proper warmup for the first couple miles of the race. The bus arrived to the start line with just over an hour before the race. I kept myself occupied during the wait by earning two stars, and exploring some of the area. The race started on Dewey Bridge, right over the Colorado River. It is a very beautiful spot, and the course only gets better from there. Again, I did some very light, short bits of running, no more than 50 or so meters at a time, and all on gravel and dirt roads near the start line (I was happy for those dirt roads). They lined us up on time, and I scoped out the competition. This was an odd race in that I knew not one other runner. I was getting used to having a swarm of friends and bloggers at all my races, but The Other Half, being a Sunday race and only two weeks after Utah's main marathon, draws a completely different crowd. The field of 1500 was almost half from Colorado, and those from Utah I did not know. I figured the skinnier guys wearing singlets and racing flats might be fast. Isn't that the only clue? I recognized Bernie Boettcher from photos, and knew him to be a very good runner. He had won The Other Half the first three years, and took second last year. He also took 12th at St. George with a 2:37 two weeks ago in terrible conditions, so I knew he was in good shape and should give me a run for it. The race starts, and our lead pack separates out pretty quick. It's not a deep field. Myself and Matt Hill from Boulder, CO, and Bernie stays on our heels. Matt and I talk some and enjoy the scenery. The road has no shoulder and the river is right below us, and I am tempted to push Matt, who is running on the inside of the curve. I inform him of this urge and that I am resisting it, and he agrees that is it is for the best that I resist. Mile 1 clicks by in 5:40. I feel good (I am fresh after all), with not much pain in the shin. But it is definitely there, even after only 1 mile. Not much action for the next several miles. Matt and I share the lead, running side by side. Bernie trails a couple meters behind, content to draft. I can't hear anyone else's footsteps. It was an absolutely perfect morning: sunny (but lots of shadows in the canyon), no wind, and a starting temperature in the mid to high 40s. My shin hurts some, but is holding up fine. What a relief! I figured if it was going to be bad, I would know within a mile or two. We keep on the 5:40 pace through Mile 3, then hit a couple sub-5:30s. It felt like easy cruising, but I also knew that feeling good through 5 miles was an indicator of freshness but not necessarily fitness. The hills on the second half of the course would peel the onion and show what stamina I really had underneath the initial layers.
Although I didn't want to make any moves until Mile 9, after the first big hill, I suddenly found myself alone during Mile 6. When I think back on it, I realize that I was getting warmed up and finding my stride during the first 3 miles, and then really hitting a rhythm the next three. Mile 6 was a net uphill (but not too noticeable), and I must have subconsciously upped the effort to maintain pace, and dropped Matt and Bernie in the process. Perhaps I was distracted by the utter beauty of the course during this section and inadvertently threw a surge. Through the first 5 miles we follow the river in a redrock canyon (very similar to the Canyonlands Half), but then it opens up into Castle Valley, with amazing views of the sandstone monoliths and the LaSal Mountains in the background. Very awe-inspiring. I just hoped my separation did not come too early, as the real race was about to start.
Mile 7 featured a nice little climb, and I stayed a touch under 5:50 on it. Mile 8 was the challenge of the race: about 125' of climbing. I worked my way up as steady as I could, and hit 6:16 for the split (although still had more climbing to go). Crested the top during Mile 9, and then plummeted down. My shin was starting to hurt more, and I was not able to take the downhill as fast I ordinarily would. I was preoccupied with both my shin, the scenery, and some daydreaming, and was a little startled to hear footsteps behind me, probably 20 meters back. I woke myself up and got focused again, finished out the downhill, and started the next uphill. The recovery mile (9) was 5:36. Definitely too slow.
I don't remember the specific hills for the rest of the race; it just seemed like one after another. Fortunately none were as bad as the Mile 8 hill, and every uphill had a nice downhill on the flip side to recover on. So I managed to keep a steady rhythm. Since I could not run the downhills as well as I normally could, I just focused on recovering and keeping pace on the down, and then working the ups. My shin kept getting more sore, but by Mile 10 I knew I would at least make it to the finish. And I no longer heard footsteps, so the win was looking good too. I knew from the profile that there would be one more sizable hill that crests at Mile 12, then it's home-free on the downhill all the way to the finish. The last hill felt good, and I worked it hard, knowing that was "it". I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the profile was wrong, and the hill actually crested just after 11.5 miles or so. A line of drummers at the top resounded this fact that the race was basically over. I waved to the drummers and then started the downhill. After about a mile of down, the course made the final (and only) turn, into the Sorrel River Ranch. Here it flattened out for the last half mile. I hit the last mile in 5:22. They put up a finish line tape, and I got to break it. That doesn't happen much, so I always enjoy it when it does.
| Mile | Actual Split | Sasha's Course Tool Split
| Terrain
| | 1 | 5:40 | 5:43
| flat/rolling
| | 2 | 5:39 | 5:34
| flat/rolling | | 3 | 5:39 | 5:49
| flat/rolling | | 4 | 5:24 | 5:24
| rolling, net downhill
| | 5 | 5:28 | 5:37
| flat/rolling | | 6 | 5:31 | 5:32
| flat/rolling, net uphill
| | 7 | 5:48 | 5:39
| decent climb
| | 8 | 6:16 | 6:17
| big climb, ~125'
| | 9 | 5:36 | 5:26
| finish climbing, then downhill
| | 10 | 5:49 | 5:42
| nice hill
| | 11 | 5:32 | 5:24
| rolling, not too bad
| | 12 | 5:37 | 5:47
| last uphill
| | 13 | 5:22 | 5:24
| downhill then flat
| | 0.1 | 0:39 | 0:36
| flat
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I ended up at 1:14:02. Bernie ended up about a minute back for 2nd, and Matt was about 2:30 back for 3rd. I was quite happy with this time. I really had no idea if I could even average 6-minute miles, or finish the race for that matter, so was quite pleased to average 5:39/mile and win outright. Not only that, but I learned the valuable lesson that elliptical training indeed helps retain fitness. At no point during the race did I feel like I was struggling. The only downside I experienced was that my muscles lost their ability and adaption to absorbing impact and preventing damage. My quads were shot afterward, and my calves, ankles, hamstrings and quads are much more sore today (Monday, as I write this) than they should be after a half. Much of hard marathon training is to build fitness; the other half is to adapt your body to handle pounding. I had definitely lost that second part over the last few weeks. It was a beautiful course, and a well-organized race. I would recommend it to anyone. I think I will be back to run it again at some point, hopefully at full health. I loved the hills and loved that it was a challenging, honest course. Much fun. And I ended up winning a really nice duffel bag, and the bag was full of race swag. I like prizes like that; very St. George-like. I ended up with a pair of sunglasses, 2 hats, socks, a t-shirt, and a metal water bottle. I stuck around for the raffle, but failed to win the treadmill. Bummer. So I'm obviously done for the year, since one with better judgment would not have even run this race. I'll give my shin as long as it takes to heal up, so no running until the swelling and pain are gone. It actually doesn't hurt too much today (Monday), but is quite swollen. In any case, once I can run again, I'll take my time and hopefully building a long, slow base over the winter. Patience is key. I won't run a marathon again until I think I can PR, but hopefully I can take a stab at it next year. It's disappointing to have so many injuries and health problems this year, but I am pleased and comforted to end the short season on a high note. *Tuesday Update* I added Sasha's course tool estimated splits to the split table. As usual, the course tool is quite close in analyzing the effect of topography on pace deviation. Where it was "off" I could explain usually because of my impaired downhill running ability. The course tool estimates this race was worth about a 1:11:10 on flat terrain, based on 970' of climb and 1010' of drop. Runworks.com, which is based on Noakes, predicts 1:12:17 for that terrain. Sasha tends to be a bit generous in some of his time translations, so I'll go with the more conservative Noakes formula. In contrast, Runworks.com normalizes my TOU Half time to 1:13:15, about a minute slower than my aided time on that course. So I would estimate my Other Half performance to be about a minute better than my TOU performance. And perhaps around 1:10 would be doable on a flat sea level course. It's impossible to know, but quite fun to speculate. Either way, I still feel good about it.
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