I feel you, Dathan (SD Half Marathon race recap)

I’ll have the Endurance Live post up tomorrow morning, but this is the recap of the half marathon I ran in San Diego this morning.

I miraculously got up on time, didn’t eat any breakfast before the race, drank my coffee in the car (read: didn’t go to the bathroom before the start), didn’t have a drop of water since the night before, and yet somehow made it in the nick of time to grab my bib and find Pam and Nicole in corral 1.

I also met reader Angela who was running her first big half marathon, go girl!

Before the race started, Pam was urging me to go for a PR (sub 1:35), but I sorta hemmed and hawed, not really wanting to put in much effort.  Anyways, the race started on time and I talked to Nicole for a minute and then started chatting with one of the sisters and co-owners of RunningSkirts.

First mile, 7:10.  Ok, that wasn’t too bad after all.

I said goodbye to the skirt sister and kept on plodding along.  I didn’t bring any music so I talked to a few random runners and kept it steady at 7:15 pace.  In fact, my splits would be kinda cool… if they were actually intentional.

5K: 7:15

10K: 7:15

15K: 7:15

Anywhoozles, I was running what I felt was a comfortable-hard pace: it definitely took some effort but it wasn’t unsustainable either.  I kept telling myself, This is GMP (goal marathon pace); you’re running a marathon right now.  Keep it nice and relaxed.  Stay here at this pace.

The weather was nice and overcast which is great for running, and the course was pretty especially the first half that ran along the harbor and through Point Loma.

By mile 7 I could tell I needed some calories; the only thing I had taken in all morning was a cup of energy drink at mile 2; thankfully, gels were handed out at mile 8 so I grabbed two and immediately sucked one down.

And then we hit a hill.  Short but steep.  I saw a couple people walking up.

And then we hit THE hill.  Long, oh so terribly long.  I saw a lot of people walking up it.

I’d guess this hill was about 3/4 mile long and man, it was tough near the top.  I haven’t ran that hard a hill in a race in a long time.

Miles 8 and 9 were 7:25 and 7:45, nice and way off pace.

But then it flattened out and eventually led downhill to the finish.  I took the second gel at mile 10.5.  I wish I would have been able to space them out better, but that’s completely my fault since I didn’t bring any of my own.

The last 2 miles were some pretty fast downhill’ing and I saw Pam way out in front of me for the first time in the whole race.  She was killing it, staying right on pace, and looked really strong.

I tried to sprint and catch up to her, but I started kicking too late and ended up finishing 1 second slower than her with a 1:34:04.  (She was actually farther ahead of me at the finish but started before me so our times weren’t far off from each other)

I’m so proud of Pam and Nicole, both PR’ed today by a couple minutes!  boom.

I’m also happy that 7:15s didn’t feel too terribly bad.  Besides the monster hill and sprinting at the end, I felt like I was doing a fast long run, not racing my guts out. 

Got Chocolate Milk’s new ad campaign is called “My After” about how you feel and recover afteryour workout. 

As I was driving home I was thinking about how I want to feel after a race race (not a for fun, costume race)… I want to feel completely empty, like I left everything on the course.  I want to refuel (with low-fat chocolate milk, doi) mindlessly because the simple act of thinking would require too much effort.

I didn’t run that way today.  I’m pretty sure I did at Carlsbad but definitely not today.  Oh well, it was a fun race.  And now it’s my bedtime!

Tagged as: PR, race recap, san diego