eee! I got a trophy!

[ilanarama]

As some of you know, I ran a half marathon in Moab on Sunday. This race - the "Other Half" - was to be a goal race for me; I figured that with the training I had been doing and the 2500-foot elevation difference from here, I had a good shot at 1:42, which would be a 2+ minute PR, and with magic pixie dust I might be able to get closer to 1:40. As it was, no pixie dust was to be had, but I ran a solid race and came in at 1:41:44, which was enough for third place in my age group - and as the AG winner was also second overall, and the AG second place was first Master (over 40) woman (after #1 was moved to an OA award), they were both knocked out of the age group placings and I got the first place AG award!

I got sick about 10 days ago and ended up doing an "extreme taper" of only 2 runs, total of 13 miles, in the week before the race. I did not run either Friday or Saturday, and I slept poorly Saturday night (actually, I slept poorly all week) but felt okay when I got up at 5 am.

It was a beautiful and sunny day but chilly at the start, and there was lots of shade from the cliff walls on and off for the first 4 miles. The course is amazingly beautiful, running along the Colorado River in a redrock canyon; it's gently rolling for the first 7 miles, then it becomes quite hilly, but hey, I like hills. Then the last mile is downhill until about 1/4 mile from the end, where it flattens out. There were about 1500 runners, 2/3 women, and it is an extremely well-organized race. Well before sunrise we rode buses to the start, where we warmed up next to fires in barrels, drank hot chocolate and coffee, and went to the portapotties multiple times, la la la.

I lined up with my friend Karah from Grand Junction (we have been roomies for several races now) just in front of the 8 minute pace sign - weird to be so close to the front. I dialed in my pace pretty much right from the get-go, letting Karah go around mile 4. I honestly felt like I was running as fast as I wanted to go, like if I was running any faster I would blow up, the whole time. I mostly ran by feel, but I did check my runner's GPS (which calculates my pace) and heart rate monitor frequently, which kept me from slacking off. Quite a few people passed me in the first half but I really picked them off both on the uphills and downhills. Splits (manually lapped at the mile marks) with %WHR (working HR percent, calculated by subtracting my resting HR from my max as calculated from the highest I've hit in a 5K race) - the first couple of miles were high and spiky, either due to my HRM being ornery, or possibly race adrenaline, I don't know.

1 - 7:49 (86%)
2 - 7:47 (89%)
3 - 7:43 (82%)
4 - 7:43 (83%) - at this point I am kind of amazed, because the most sub-8 minute miles I had been able to string together in training was 4 in a row - and they were all 7:45-7:50 miles.
5 - 7:41 (83%)
6 - 7:46 (81%)
7 - 7:54 (82%) - beginning of the big hill
8 - 8:33 (86%) - biggest hill on the course. I slowed down, but everyone around me slowed a lot more, and I passed five or six people.
9 - 7:30 (87%) - downhill! I looked silly, windmilling my arms trail-running-style, but passed yet more people. Zoom!
10 - 7:51 (87%) - up another hill...
11 - 7:39 (87%) - ...and down the backside.
12 - 7:47 (88%) - up a long although not very steep hill. And at the top were drummers, keeping up a nice, steady rhythm, and I could hear them the whole mile, pulling me up the hill!
13 - 7:19 (90%) - downhill, windmilling my arms like a maniac. Then the course flattened out and turned into the longest finish chute I have ever run through (I kept thinking, oh, the finish line must be there at the curve! Oh, no, maybe it's there at the archway! Oh, no, where the heck is it?!) I passed only a few people here but one was, as it turned out, in my age group, and I beat her by only 14 seconds.
.1 - 0:35 = 5:50 pace(! I'm guessing I hit the button late last mile, I can't have been going that fast) (93% avg, max 99%) madly pumping my arms toward the finish, for a total time of 1:41:44.

I came in 25th OA women, 83 OA everybody, and 3rd in AG - but the two women ahead of me were a sponsored racer at 1:27 (2nd OA) and the Master's winner at 1:34, so I was not even in their league. Karah beat me by about 30 seconds but is in the more competitive 35-39 age group. I caught up with her just after the finish and we got some food and then some free beer from the Moab Brewery booth. Then we got more beer. Then we got more beer. Whee!

Finally, I would like to embarrassedly point out that the final 3.1 miles of this race is a new 5K PR for me. In my defense, this was mostly downhill (although with an 80-ft climb in the middle), and the only 5K course I have raced is a loop. Or maybe I just need a 10-mile warmup to do well...

Comments

[blnchflr]

Congrats on trophy!

And at the top were drummers, keeping up a nice, steady rhythm, and I could hear them the whole mile, pulling me up the hill!
Cool :o)

There are no more races in my area this year, which is a bummer; would be good to have something immediate to work towards (next race - 4.5K - is in May).

[ilanarama]

The drummers were awesome. A friend of a friend ran with a camera and her pictures are here - they include one of the drummers.

Yeah, we run out of races pretty quickly in the winter, too. I'm doing a marathon in mid-November at a slightly lower elevation (and therefore likely to be better weather), and there is always a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving (last year it snowed) which I may or may not be around to do, but then there's nothing until April. Although there is a March half marathon run by the same group that did this race, that entry is by lottery, that I will try to get into.

It is nice to have something to work towards, though, for sure. Helps with the motivation.