National Half Marathon Race Report

Katie, Liz and myself pre-race

As you probably know from reading this blog, I've been up and down with my training this year. I've been hard pressed to say that I was ready for this race. Last year, going into this race, I was confident I was going to PR, and I did, by almost 10 minutes. This year, I had some bad luck with the races leading up to National and had no real sense of gauge on my fitness. I just knew that my workouts were up and down and I didn't feel like I had enough quality and quantity long runs.

I was pretty calm about the race though, having gotten 9 minute PR last year, meant that I had a large margin of error. I had thought that I could probably run a 1:35, maybe creak into 1:34, but was pretty confident that I could run my 2nd fastest half marathon, even if I crashed.

and I pretty much crashed. I did however get to walk away with some thoughts on what I need to do moving forward.

1. I have my garmin set up to show me pace or show me mileage or have a pretty much blank screen. Last year, the blank screen really worked out well for me, as I really felt in control of my pace, but last years course, they had mile markers out. This year, I saw mile #1, mile #5, mile #10 (which was confusing, because it was about .20 of a mile further out than the 2nd five mile relay finish line was) and mile 11, I must have seen mile 12, because I lapped my watch. But basically the first 10 miles of the race, I had no idea how far I was going what mile I was at, how much further I needed to go. I had to screw around with my watch to figure out what mile I was at. I should have had a back up screen to give me some information, if the race is mis marked or not marked at all!
2. Chiropractor. I should have gone before the race. I felt twinges in the right side of my back during some of the uphill portions of the race, like something wasn't aligned right.
3. Form. I was pretty excited the last few weeks, my workouts have been really good and I felt as though I got my running form back. This race though, right from the get go, I was hunched over. I kept trying to get upright, but my shoulders were really hunched over. I had a tough time letting go of watching the street, as there were some small manholes (too small for any man, but one my foot could easily get caught in) that I noticed looked broken or open and my mind kept playing a scenario of my foot getting caught in it and breaking a leg. I will say the street I had such a tough time with last year, was wonderfully paved! Coach George said when he saw me go by, I was completely hunched over. I always work on my core and actually added some items to my routine, which I thought was helping. I'm just not sure what happened there.
4. My legs felt tired. I didn't feel tired, but my legs just didn't feel like they had any UMPH in them. At mile 10, another 5k seemed daunting. I was lucky to spot the two speedsters from the Ashburn Farm 10k race and one of their sisters (Megan), who was a teammate of mine, was waiting to run them in to the finish. I tried to tuck in with them, but they were going too fast, so I quickly backed off.
5. Just before I got to mile 11, I got a sharp pain from my hip flexor all the way up to the right side of my stomach muscle. Every time I landed on my right foot, the pain would come shooting like a knife. Afterwards I was trying to determine if I went out too fast and it was something like that, but after reviewing my splits, I don't think so. Especially since, two days later, my stomach muscle is still in pain and hurts to the touch. I need to figure out why/how that happened. My one thought is that the pain I felt in my back in the early parts of the race, made its way over to the front side.
6. Just at this time, I saw my teammate Megan, who was helping her sister. She is nursing a foot injury and decided to wait for me and run me in. I totally needed her, she was incredible. My stomach was in pain, she was so good at telling me to take breaths. How good is it having a cheerleader that reads your blog? Pretty awesome, with words of encouragement, like, "you are a warrior" and "you are fierce", she really got me through those last two miles. Thank you Megan (you can see her in black in the pictures, I'm pretty sure I'm laughing at her calling me a warrior when I felt like anything but)!!
7. Cristina was right, 33* is shorts weather. I was hot in my capris and l/s top, although I'm not sure I would have done it differently, since it was too cold to stay around at the start without them. I ditched my hat, headwarmer and 2nd set of gloves with Cristina and Tara just after mile 5. Thank you ladies, that was a great help!
8. When my legs felt tired, I really did feel as thought the kinvaras were just too squishy (to use Cristina's description) for racing and while the T7's are not enough for the longer races, maybe I still need to find a firmer lightweight shoe for these kinds of races.

The thing about running a bunch of smaller races before your big one is, they give you a sense of what you can accomplish.  I had some excuses for poor performances in the last three I did, so I really need to get re-focused. 

Next up is the GW Parkway 10 miler, I have fingers crossed I can PR at this race, if not hit another, not so secret goal: <70 min, but clearly, I have some work to do!


Here are my splits from the Half:
1st mile:  7:47
mile 5 - 29:44 (7:26 pace)
mile 10 - 36:05 (7:13 pace)
mile 11 - 7:39
mile 12 - 8:11
mile 13.1 - 8:19 (7:33 pace)
Overall time - 1:37:46 -  4th out of 511 in my age group.