Today was the second annual Hot Air Balloon Half in conjunction with the annual Hot Air Balloon Festival here in Lake Havasu City. We doubled the number of racers this year! That means 2. It was 50 degrees and mildly windy this morning. Unfortunately it was too windy for the Hot Air Balloons to go up like planned.
We started the race a little after 7:30. My goal was to run 6:52 miles for as long as I could. Having run the 50 mile race just 6 days ago, I wasn't sure how long I could keep up that pace. I hit the halfway at 44:59, one second ahead of pace, and as I turned around I was pleasantly surprised to see Blake only about 50 meters behind me.
I was starting to tire soon after the turn around but kept pushing. Miles 9, 10, and 11 my pace started dropping though and about a quarter mile before hitting mile 11 Blake caught me. I slipped in behind him and ran for a bit. It was nice to have someone there with me and my body soon relaxed and I was able to pick it back up again. We ran side by side for the last 2.1 miles averaging 6:45. I thought Blake was going to drop back, but I told him he had to stay with me and he dug deep and did it. We crossed the finish line, 13.1 on our watches, at 1:31:25 in a dead tie for first place and since we are in differnet age groups we each won our age group. :)
A few things I learned about running a half marathon 6 days after a 50 miler: 1) It takes more than six days to get your legs at 100% after a 50 miler, 2) 13.1 miles seems really short after running 50 miles, and 3) 13.1 hurts as bad as a 50 miler, just in a different way.
Congratulations to Blake who set a huge half marathon PR today, and he ran 40 miles of the 50 last Saturday with me. He is looking good for his first BQ next month in Phoenix!
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