in which someone throws magic pixie dust on me

[ilanarama]

I ran the Steamworks Half Marathon this morning. It was my third time running this race, but my first time actually managing to train for it, and so I had high hopes for doing far better than the slightly more than 2-hour times I had run before. I always have multiple goals, and as I posted over at runners, these were mine:

Fallback goal: better than 1:56 (my current half marathon PR, which was actually the first half of the Baltimore Marathon)
Stated goal: better than 1:50
Seekrit goal: 1:48:xx
All the stars align and someone throws magic pixie dust on me: better than 1:48

Well, the pixie dust was flying, apparently: I ran 1:44:19, third place among Masters women (40-59) out of 37, and 8/140 women overall. I am, to put it mildly, stunned. Especially since that works out to be just under an 8 minute mile - and I ran maybe a total of 4 miles during training at that speed. Even my speed miles were mostly in the range 8:05-8:20, which I found it hard to sustain for the full interval distance of 1-4 miles - so how come I managed to do slightly better than that for 13.1?

I started out running at what I thought was a comfortable pace, and kept sneaking glances at my Garmin, thinking, oh, it must be reading off, there is no way I am running that fast. And then I hit the first mile marker and it still told me I was running too fast. Yet my heart rate was well within what I had laid out as my "don't run faster than this or you will suffer" level. It was downhill, so I reasoned, hey, I'm just getting a boost from the hill Same thing happened the second mile. And the third. And by then I just figured I would roll with it, keep the pace, see how I felt, and much to my surprise I felt pretty good until about mile 12, when I just wanted it to be over, damn it, but talked myself into finishing by promising my body it could keel over after the finish line. (Which it did.)

Then I drank three beers. \o/

Comments

Running and reconnecting

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Ilana, Glad the running is going well for you. One of these days I'll be back in form, and then we only have to be in the same part of the New World. One minor problem/question: I know two Ilanas who fit your profile and picture. If Colorado is the birthplace, I know which you are (and never knew what you looked like, but the photo looks ok for the other one as well). If not, when did you get back to the states?

Anyhow, good hearing from you over at Kim Hannula's blog. Please email me at bobg at radix dot net.

[blnchflr]

That's amazing, go you!!