Ran the St. Louis Rock n Roll Half Marathon yesterday with 21,000 of my closet friends. Had a blast -- this was a beautiful, big city course with live bands, a road full of runners the entire race, huge spectator crowds, live bands every mile, and a fabulous finish area party with headliner band and free beer in warm fall sunshine. Very fun experience. Overall, however, I was slower than I would have liked. Headed out with the 2:10 pace group with the plan in mind that if the miles were clicking by I would speed up in the back half. However, I never got in a groove in this race. I was slightly winded the first 2 miles (10:29 pace) and although I exactly averaged my target 10:00 pace through miles 3 - 7, I just never felt at ease and clicking. This race was a steady push for me the entire way. Lost the 2:10 pace group in miles 8 & 9 when they picked up the pace on a 2-mile long uphill and I slowed down to 10:20's. Lodged two 11:00 miles in next 3 miles to mile 12, and only beat 2:15 by finishing with a 9:50 pace for the finishing 1.1 mile. Ended up at my "C" plan of 2:14:46 for a 10:17 average overall.
Splits were: 10:29, 10:29, 10:10, 9:56, 9:56, 9:57, 9:59 (miles 3-7 at exactly 10:00 average); 10:22; 10:20; 11:03; 10:19; 10:53 (2 off miles in miles 8-12); 9:58; and 8:37 for the last 0.1 mile.
As Mike noted on Rob's entry, a half marathon 6 weeks out is a good barameter of where I stand. I am still working towards seeing if I can run a 4:30 in Dallas, but this weekend would indicate that 4:45 is much more likely. We'll see.
Last thought: I may make the St. Lous half a target race in the future. Beautiful city with great hotels 1 block from the race start. This might be a really fun weekend trip for Lucy and I in the future. -- Bill
2 comments:
Bill,
So what, that your didn't come in with your expected time. That happens to every runner. Did you have fun?
Looks to me like you may have gone out a little faster than you should have. No matter, you finishd and had a good time.
It also looks to me like you and I are going to have around the same finish time in Dallas! I'll know more about that in a few more weeks. Right now I'm just perfectly content to just finish!
I had a blast at this race! It's been 10 years since I've run in that big a field and it was really, really fun!
I had some other mitigating factors operating here -- the race was hilly, and the two previous nights were both low sleep nights. We got up at 4:45 am Saturday morning to drive to the marching band competition, and I only got 5-6 hours of not so great sleep in the hotel Saturday night. I don't think my start was too fast, since my goal was to find out how 10:00's feel in a race, which I found out. I think the basic problem is that I'm still not knocking down 10:00 miles that easily yet. 10:30's come easily, but 10:00's still take some work for me. To your point, I have a feeling that had I gone out at steady 10:30's for the first half, I still might have turned in the same time, but for the record, I wanted to see if I could launch and hold the 10:00's.
Overall, fun to run in such a larger than life event!
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