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
|
| 