Its now 2 days away and I've had some time to reflect on my race from Saturday. I'm extremely happy with the result but even more happy with my preparation leading up to the race. More on that later.
I worked the night before and was home around 10:30pm, in bed and asleep around 11:30pm. Woke up at 7am and had a banana around 7:45 with a plain whole wheat bagel from D&Ds. Race time was 10:00 so thats about 300 calories 2 hours and 15 minutes prior to the race(Didn't finish bagel). Arrived at the race and started my 15 minute warm up at 9:25. Finished at 9:40 and was scrambling a little bit to change into race clothes and get my compression socks on. The weather was absolutely amazing for February in NY. I believe race time temperature was around 37 degrees and only getting warmer, so after some debating I elected to race in shorts, compression socks, and an Under Armour long sleeve top. I probably would have wore a shirt/singlet had I brought one to race. Lastly I heavily debated wearing my Garmin, but ultimately wore it for "scientific" purposes.
Gun went off and I was at the front with 4 other gentleman. They added an extra loop so we were now making 7 hairpin turns. The first 2 coming at .5 and 1 mile. I stayed with the pack of at .5 and kind of let them go between .5 and 1 mile. Again I was looking to hit 6:10-6:15 pace, and these guys were going 6:05 or faster. So I kind of let them get away which was debatable. After turning around at 1 mile I realized there was a very very slight headwind going away from the finish. So while these 4 guys ran together until mile 7ish, I was left in no-mans land by myself breaking the wind.
The first few miles went well and heres where I would like to debate the use of my garmin. I probably looked down for my pace 70-80 times throughout the race. Its such a massive distraction from whats actually going on in the race. One thing I did notice was that a few times while I was zoning out, I kind of woke up and looked down at my watch to see 6:30+ pace. So I think it did help me from getting too comfortable mid-race. And I'll add I wasn't truly comfortable at any point in this race, unlike my last race.
Around mile 7 an older gentleman from the pack started falling off and he looked horrible so my goal was to catch him. The other guys all looked really good and were already 3-400 meters up on me so I didn't think I was catching any of them. Miles 7-9 were just me trying to real the guy in. At our second to last hairpin turn the guy only had about 20 meters on me. I picked him up in the next half mile and instead of staying with him just went right past. At the last turn with 2.1 miles left I sort of questioned my decision to go past him so abruptly. Most runners fear is letting anyone pass you in the last mile of a race. The last 2 miles are what I like to call a slow death. I was pushing as much as I can to hold 6:10 pace, anytime I let off I was back up to 6:30 pace. With a quarter mile to go I looked back and although the guy actually closed the gap I knew he wouldn't get me. I finished in 1:20:47*, with a new PB. Again I was thrilled to have run 2 minutes faster than my last race on December 14th and 5 minutes faster than my first half-marathon last year. I put an asterik next to my time because my official time is listed as 1:20:54 which is impossible. I'm going to split the difference and call my official PB as 1:20:50.
I'm already thinking about the future. Having only run 25-36MPW, I can't wait until next winter to try and PB again. I think a sub 1:18 is definitely possible with some higher mileage as well as some more intensity at certain points. It also will help if I don't take off 3 months randomly in the Summer.
But now is Triathlon time!!! As soon as I finish writing this I'm going to register for my second HIM and will be onto my next goal of sub 5 hours. This will undoubtedly be the greatest challenge I've ever faced. But I'm willing to do whatever it takes over the course of the next 4-5 months to get there.
I actually jumped the gun. Its now vacation time!!! I'm leaving for Costa Rica in less than 24 hours. I can't wait to do nothing but relax, eat, and read for 5 full days!
