Sean's Running Blog

Tacoma Half Marathon

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Location:

Snoqualmie,WA,

Member Since:

Feb 24, 2007

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Local Elite

Running Accomplishments:

  • 2011 Boston Marathon -- 2:27 (Top 50)
  • 2011 Steilacoom 20k -- 1:04:57 (1st)
  • 2010 Indianapolis Monumental Marathon -- 2:26 (7th) 
  • 2010 Fall City 10k -- 31:06 (1st)
  • 2009 Indy Mini Marathon -- 1:07:53 (7th)
  • 2009 WWU Invitational -- 10000m (30:58)
  • 2009 UW Indoor Meet -- 5000m (14:49)
  • 2008 Orem Turkey Run -4 miler -- 19:55 (1st)
  • 2008 Seafair Torchlight 8k--25:03 (3rd) 
  • 2008 Time to Fly 5k -- 15:35 (1st)
  • 2008 Newport Marathon -- 2:22:47 (1st)
  • Steilacoom 15M--1:18:30 (1st)
  • 2007 Olympic Trials -- 2:30:41 (91st)
  • 2007 St. George --2:18:55 (3rd)

Short-Term Running Goals:

  • Feb 23 -- Ft Steilacoom 15M
  • March 23  – Ft. Steilacoom 20k
  • April 15  – Boston Marathon
  • June 8 – Sound to Narrows 12k
  • June 22  – Grandma’s Half Marathon (USATF Champs.)
  • July 7 – Run of the Mill 5k
  • July 27 – Torchlight 8k
  • September – SJJ Half (maybe)
  • October/November – Fall Marathon (maybe)
  • December – Club XC Nationals

Long-Term Running Goals:

 Stay healthy

Personal:

Ran track my junior and senior years in high school and cross country my senior year. Went to BYU but did not run. Served LDS church mission to San Bernardino, CA. Started running again in April 2005. Marathon debut was St. George in 2005.

I coach the Mount Si High School Track Team (distance)

Been married for almost 17 years. My wife, Mara, and I have four kids ages 16, 14, 13 and 11.

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Brooks T5 Lifetime Miles: 34.00
Ravenna Lifetime Miles: 250.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
60.200.0013.102.0075.30
Weight: 0.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.000.000.000.0012.00

12 easy miles under crisp blue skies this morning. Rain forecast for the rest of the week so I made sure to enjoy the lovely weather this morning. Still have some tightness in the quad. I'm planning on running the Newport marathon on the 31st so it will be interesting to see if my body holds up. I'm going to jump into the Tacoma half marathon this Saturday as a test run.

Weight: 0.00
Comments(3)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
11.100.000.000.0011.10

Easy run through the neighborhood this morning. Quite chilly. Wondering when spring will get here. I beat the rain though. Now I have to sit on an airplane for two hours this morning and two more hours tonight. Ick

Weight: 0.00
Add Comment
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
11.100.000.002.0013.10

13+ mile run today which included a 1x2000m @ 6:00 with 2:30 rest afterward rolling into 4x300m repeats @48-50 with 1:00 rest between each rep. I was onn pace through four laps on the 2000m crossing at 4:50 but really slowed down the last lap finishing in 6:05. I hit each of the 300m reps at :50. I opted to wear my trainers the whole time rather than switch into the lighter racers which are half of the weight but I doubt that had much to do with anything over such a short distance. Still debating whether to run the Tacoma Half Marathon this weekend or to run in the PNTF Track Championships at Husky Stadium running the 5000m. I've never run that distance on the track (or on the roads for that matter) so I'm curious how I would do. However, I also don't want to go get slapped around by a bunch of 20-something kids. Based on how difficult it was to try for a 6:00 2000m today, I doubt seriously that I could break 15:00 which is the time I would probably need to avoid looking too silly. Coach wants me to do the 5000m. I'm leaning toward the half. We'll see who wins.

Weight: 0.00
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Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
12.000.000.000.0012.00

Ran to the gym and back this morning where I worked on core strength.

Added 10 miles this afternoon at lunch. Everything feels pretty good. I've decided to run the half this weekend so I'm kind of getting excited about that.

Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
8.000.000.000.008.00

Eight easy miles this morning ahead of tomorrow's half marathon. Everything seems to be functioning properly. It will be interesting to see how things hold up tomorrow.

Weight: 0.00
Comments(1)
Race: Tacoma Half Marathon (13.1 Miles) 01:09:47, Place overall: 1, Place in age division: 1
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
6.000.0013.100.0019.10

Deciding whether or not to run this race was perhaps more difficult than running the race itself. My coach wanted me to run in the PNTF 5000m at Husky Stadium and I wanted to run the half but was concerned that either one might put me back on the injured reserve list only three weeks away from the Newport Marathon.

Well, I'm glad I raced it. More than the fact that I won, I was most pleased with how it went. Like most of the half marathons around here, this one had its share of hilly terrain to deal with.

The first four miles are quite hilly. In hindsight, I was probably too conservative and should have stuck closer to my goal pace of 5:20s. I led from the gun. One guy hung with me for the first mile and as soon as the first hill came I began to gap him pretty good. My goal in entering the race was to win and stay healthy doing it so I was glad to already be putting some distance from my nearest competitor. However, I would run the rest of the race alone which is always hard when trying to push for a time. A few things helped though. First, since I was the leader, I had the lead cyclist in front of me the whole way. He was awesome. The half starts 30 minutes after the full marathon so by mile four, I was starting to catch up to the slowest of the marathoners. By mile 6, I was passing them in droves. The cyclist was awesome in clearing the slower marathoners out of the "inside lane" so I could have thge shortest distance to travel around the turns. I almost collided with one guy who apparently had his ipod turned up so loud he couldn't hear the cyclist or his loud whistle. No wonder the USATF has banned them. But I never see it enforced. Oh well. At about mile 4.5 it flattens out as you run along the Puget Sound all the way to the turnaround at Mile 8.8 back to Mile 11.5. There were actually two inclines in each direction that caused me to have to buckle down and not lose focus on maintaining my pace. They were those sinple yet challening overpass type things that crossed some railroad track. I hit them twice on the way out and twice coming back.

The great thing about an out and back is that you get to see what is coming. The bad thing about an out and back is that you get to see what is coming. From about Mile 3.5 to 4.5, it's there some solid downhill stretches. I really tried to throw down the hammer there because I knew that coming back up them would be brutal.

I actually felt increasingly better as the race went on. I'm the type that tries to compartmentalize a race into segments...telling myself "OK...just keep this pace up for two more miles and then if you have to give a little back, that's OK." It seems to usually work. Anyway, I kept telling myself that every two miles and it seemed to get easier as I went.

The turnaround was a welcome sight because now I got to run the next three miles re-passing the marathoners and many of the half marathoners who were on their way to the turnaround. I also got to see where my competition was. The next guy was several minutes behind so I knew that I was home free barring some disaster. The other runners were awesome and cheered me on loudly. It helped make up for not having any competition to help pull me through those tough latter third miles.

But the hardest part was yet to come. From about mile 11.75 to 12.5 was just brutal. It's a steady and fairly steep climb back up from the water to the city and it comes at a time in the race when there is little appetite for additional challenge. This is when I started looking at my watch -- for better or for worse -- a little more closely. Breaking 1:10 was on my wishlist but with my injury and some less than impressive workouts in the last couple of weeks, I wasn't so sure going in that 1:10 on this course in my shape would happen. But I also knew that at the Mile 11 mark, I was well on pace to do it. In fact, had the rest of the course been flat, I may well have flirted with going below 1:09.

So the 3/4 mile stretch to Mile 12.5 left my legs burning. I really wanted to attack it but there wasn't a lot of attack left in my legs. The rest of the course featured flat followed by quick, one-block steep uphills which I did OK on. The last .1 is a St. George style free fall which is always a bit scary especially since enough rain had fallen during the race to make the roads a bit slick. I noticed that most when trying to scale the uphills.

My biggest beef with the course is that about one mile of it was on gravel trail...not exactly a fast surface. It seemed senseless because it was around a park that had surface streets surrounding it with no traffic on them. Oh well.

Anyway...a good, challenging run and result and time I was pleased with. Incidentally, I broke my 10k PR which was 33:03. I know that 33:03 is nothing to write home about but I've only run one 10k since I started running again three years ago so not much to compare it to. I should also add that I don't have a 5k PR because I have never run one. Hopefully that will change this summer. 

My splits are below. I should also say that my Garmin read  13.10 at the end of the race and never was any mile marker more than .01 different than my watch. The race director is also a USATF course certifier. It was the most accurate course in terms of mile marker placement I have ever run.

Mile

Time

Overall

1

5:29

5:29

2

5:30

10:59

3

5:32

16:28

5k

 

17:00

4

5:15

21:43

5

5:02

26:45

6

5:11

31:56

10k

 

33:02

7

5:19

37:15

8

5:14

42:29

9

5:15

47:44

10

5:18

53:02

11

5:17

58:19

12

5:25

1:03:44

13

5:34

1:09:17

13.1

:29.5

1:09:47

Weight: 0.00
Comments(7)
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
60.200.0013.102.0075.30
Weight: 0.00
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