I don't know if you would call this a Half Marathon or not being the race was 14 miles. Obviously, a mistake in measuring the course but all take 3rd place at 1:31:40. According to my garmin at 13.96 I had 1:33 by the official clock had me at 1:31:40 at 13.96 miles. Who to believe. I'm humbled and happy to run again and really didn't care what place I was at this was just a training run (in theory I shouldn't be running at all so why worry about the little issues in life). I really wanted a longer run today anyway :-). I did check my Garmin at 13.1 and I would have finished at 1:26. The day before the race I drove up to Blackfoot to register less than 24 hours before it was to start. I couldn't decide to run or not because of the knee/ligament whatever it is. I iced it wore my Compression recovery socks and took meds (stood on my head etc. :0) on Friday. I did whatever it took to get the knee/leg to feel better. I could barely walk with my lower knee hurting after I would run. On my morning runs once I warmed up the pain would stay dormant but would hurt at first and I would have to go real slow. I thing it's the ligament being irritated that runs along the knee lower that attaches to the upper quad. I'm no doctor and need to do some research. But I'm certain the hip and higher up doesn't hurt or where my titanium rod is. Here was my strategy... if my knee was okay I wanted to try a consistent pace between 6:30 to 6:4ish and keep that. I didn't want no sub 6's because the consistent pace will help me better with my Marathon pace. I didn't want to be all over pace wise because I haven't found that consistency yet. So if I felt really good knowing I could go faster I wasn't going to do that. Again only training. Jeff asked me before the race what I was shooting for and I thought with my knee issues I said a 1:35 to 1:40 if I was lucky, but if all went well I had this strategy in the back of my mind. Did a warm-up mile with Jeff and
his wonderful friend Lynette who I've met before. She did awesome
for being very congested and having a cold (2nd place in Women's HM). It
just shows how an experience runner can handle conditions. The knee actually magically didn't hurt, but we would see with a faster pace. Mile 1: 6:53 Just warming up and seeing how the knee felt. Didn't really feel any pain so I figured I was safe and now just have fun with whatever I wanted to do the next 12 miles. Mile 2: 6:45 Just going with how I feel and running along the flat green belt passed a girl runner who went out way too fast. Mile 3: 6:39 It's so odd how I don't have the fast gear anymore at the start. Once I start getting warmed up the legs start to rotate or stride gets better. Again another flat mile through the green belt. Mile 4: 6:35 Beautiful farm land and a pretty day at 50 degrees what more could you ask for. I could have gone close to sub 6 at this point, but I reminded myself this is better training, and plus I haven't done any sub 6 tempo runs yet. Mile 5; 6:41 - Same thing running alone and it felt so easy at this pace in 4th place. You could tell that we were going to experience some major wind because it was swirling around. Mile 6: 6:36 - Straight shots of long roads on the flat farmland area. Again felt easy just cruising along and enjoying the run. Other than the wind was picking up and I was getting the sun and sweat in my eyes. (have sunglasses on order); Mile 7: 6:35 Caught the 4th place runner. I could have probably caught him a couple miles back but I stuck with the pace plan. Mile 8: 6:29 Felt good had a weird turn around a cone here that was odd that I've never seen in a race before. They definitely didn't want you hitting tangents. All good and trying to stay at that same pace feel without ever looking at the garmin only when I heard the mile point beep. Mile 9: 6:44 Very Very strong wind on this mile. I had a hard time getting my gel out and I believe it slowed the pace down a bit but with the 25 mph wind that would do it to. Again I really felt like I could have gone faster. If there was one bad mile it was probably here trying to fight with the gel. Distractions can definitely through your pace and mindset off. Mile 10: 6:35 Strong wind but feeling good and again could have picked it up. I could tell I was gaining on second place but I didn't want to pick it up and just stick with the plan. Mile 11: 6:20 Okay little fast and got out of my pace strategy but I did feel good. At this point the wind was pretty strong and I was running all alone. I did see second place up ahead. I could have really let the legs go but didn't. Mile 12: 6:25 Better pace no issues felt easy all good. This part of the course was running back on the green belt and I knew something was not quite right with the distance. Legs/knee not playing any hurting games with me. Mile 13: 6:34 Easy - but I was wondering did I make a wrong turn because I did see the finish line. My pace was still very consistent and I felt very fresh. Mile 14 7:14 - This Mile I slowed down because I was thinking did I make a wrong turn when my Garmin was way past the Half Marathon point. I started looking around thinking do I need to turn back. But I knew the finish was about a mile out because we finished the way we started. I wish I would have just dropped the hammer and finished but I was concerned I took a wrong turn. Ran a couple miles with Jeff and the second place finisher after the race than I ran four more on my own. All in all a great race even though the course was marked/measured wrong I wanted to run longer anyway. I now need to seriously think whats next. Congratulations to Jeff Shadley at the official distance 13.1 at 1:17 for 1st place. Without the wind conditions he would have been at 1:15. Nice Job Jeff!
| 