This is my first post in a long time. Bill asked about my half marathon on Sunday Sept. 7 and I decided to blog my response.
I had a good half marathon. I was not fully trained, but I did run 10 miles a week before that went well. So I knew I'd have a good day if I didn't push it. I planned to run it as a normal training run. And mostly I did, but I may have pushed myself a little.
The Broadway Bridge also had a 10K and 5K, but it was a rather small event, maybe 1500 total runners. I did do packet pickup the day before (9/6), but could have done it early on the day of the race. It was Nathan's birthday on 9/6 and Susan and I planned an outing around the packet pickup. We went to the River Market Farmer's Market, because we needed a few things and because Nathan loved the Baltimore Farmer's market that he was biking home from the day of the accident. After that we drove to the Sprint Center for packet pickup. Susan actually enjoyed packet pickup because of the silent auction. She and I bid on a few things and we won 3. I also knew Carl was running because he bid on a few things, too. We then walked to the KC Repertory Theater box office for tickets to Our Town and Hair.
On the morning of the race, I found Carl, talked with him before the start and ran with him for a few hundred feet. I planned to start out slow and kept to my plan, or at least slower than Carl. I ran the 1st 4 or so miles at around a 10:20 pace. I was hoping for an average pace of 11:00 so going faster for the 1st few miles was OK.
We ran North over the Broadway Bridge and around the airport. The 1/2 marathon and 10K started together, but the 10K went only a few hundred yards around the airport and then did a small loop to head back into town. So after the split, the field was more sparse. It was a relaxed run, no crowds to fight, but plenty of runners nearby.
When we headed back over the bridge at about mile 6, I noticed my GPS was off by a few tenths of a mile. This continued until the end. So my GPS thinks I ran 13.56 miles. (I revised it on Garmin Connect.) The bridge on the way back was mostly up hill. I did not notice the downhill on the way north.
I did slow down for the rest of the race. Mile 8 was mostly downhill. I was really slow for miles 10-12 because of some hills and I walked a little. I had some knee pain, but the walk helped and didn't need to walk much. I felt like I had a strong finish. I did not want to sprint to the finish line.
I still have some DOMS, but hope to be better for the MS150 this Saturday and Sunday.
Here's my route and splits.
Broadway Bridge Half Marathon
Mile Split
1 10:25
2 10:03
3 10:21
4 10:31
5 10:56
6 11:50
7 11:58
8 10:30
9 11:30
10 12:10
11 11:53
12 13:03
13 11:56
Average pace for 13.2: 11:41 per mile
