BAA Half Race Report: it's better with friends

Since the Duxbury race, I've definitely been in my off season. Sure I did a half marathon last weekend, and I've got an olympic distance race in Australia next weekend, but I've been treating it like the off season. Which means I've cut back to about 3 - 6 hours of exercise per week, and I've upped my ice cream intake significantly.

I showed up to the BAA Half Marathon last weekend with relatively low expectations. The Pumpkinman run gave me some confidence that I could do a pretty good time in this race, but I haven't done a half mara on its own since this race last year, so I was a little anxious, but not nervous going in.

Rachel and I did some pre-race warm ups, then headed to the line for the porta potties. This was my one complaint about the race. They did not have enough bathrooms. We waited for about 15 minutes in a line and still weren't even close. Rachel gave up and headed for the bushes, and I should have followed suit, but I thought, eh, I'll be fine.

About 2 miles in, I hear from behind me "Hey, I thought I recognized that ponytail." It's Nathaniel, Paul's roommate from Notre Dame. Nathaniel is faster than me. He runs marathons, but he had told me he was planning on running 8:30s, but now, apparently, he's feeling good. So we start running together and we're holding 7:55 - 8. In the back of my mind I'm thinking, I've never broken 50 minutes for a 10K before, if we keep this pace up... And there's the 10K mark, we've just run it in 49:14. Killer! But I hope that doesn't mean that I'll blow up for the full distance.

Now I start thinking about a sub-1:50. That would be pretty spectacular given that my fastest time was a 1:53:10. The second half of the course is a lot more uphill though, so I try not to get ahead of myself. Still we're pulling in low 8s: 8:04, 7:59, 8:02. We hit the 10 mile mark with a sub-1:20 time. Nathaniel turns to me and says, "if you've got 10 min miles left in you, you're gonna break 1:50!"

At mile 11, Nathaniel decides he's gonna see how much he's got left. I thank him for the pacing, and immediately drop back to an 8:33 mile. Hmm, that's ok, I've got buffer, it's just so much harder to push the pace when you're not trying to keep up with some one. Mile 12, only 1.1 to go. Geez, I've got to pee. But, it's only 1 more mile, you can hold it. 20 more paces, Ack! I can't hold it! I run behind a tree for a quick pit stop. So that added 30 seconds to my time.

Back to the race, and I'm ready for this thing to be over. We run around the grand stands and finally into the stadium where we finish off with half a lap. 1:46:26. Sweet!

I grab water, food, and t-shirt and look around for Nathaniel to no avail. I head back in to watch Jeff and Rachel finish their races. Rachel all smiles with an 8 minute PR!

Two big takeaways from this race:
1. I run better with friends, and I need to learn how to push myself like that on my own.

2. Make sure you pee right before the start of the race.

Stay tuned, next post will be from oz!

Race Report: BAA Half Marathon

In keeping with my "who needs training" philosophy, I ran the BAA Half Marathon this past weekend without running longer than a 10K practice run. My final time was 1:53:09, so almost spot on with my first half marathon. Though in actuality this one was about 2.5 minutes slower, since I didn't stop to pee 4K in.

The extension of my "who needs training " attitude leads to forgetfulness for the race itself. Sunday morning I forgot to change out the laces in my shoes. This sounds funny, but for tri's a wear elastic laces, and the previous weekend I had had issues with the right one loosening. I was able to force them closed, so it wasn't that big of a deal in the end. I also managed to forget my pre-race water bottle, my post-race snack and my sunnies. To be fair, it's tough to remember sunnies when it's still night outside when you leave the house, but I really did look at my visor and think, I need to bring that, then promptly left without it.

One thing I didn't forget was my ipod. Other races have rules against ipods, and this one does too: you can't win the race wearing an ipod. Since there's a very low risk of that I opted for the tunes. Getting to the start line, I pop in the headphones and hit play. Mmm, great song... that is not on my ipod. Turns out I had grabbed Paul's ipod (they are exactly the same model - why did I get him a different color?) So it was sorta like having Paul run along with me. Biggest surprise on the playlist: the Devil went down to Georgia. Loved it.

The race started near fenway and wound it's way along the parks of Boston's Emerald Necklace to the Franklin Park Zoo. We even did a small loop through the zoo. I didn't see any animals there, but I did note that we ran along the "outback trail," which made me smile.

What does one think about for two hours of running? I do math. I know, not a huge surprise, right? But I find that my poor ability to do math in my head is severely hampered when I'm running. This means that math can distract me for quite a while. So, I manage my watch, compute splits, convert to metric, convert back. (There is something that makes 10 miles seem so much closer to 13.1 miles than 16K does to 21K.) And though I was ready to be done running around mile 9, I maintained a really consistent pace between 8:25 and 8:30 minute miles.

Finally, two days after the half marathon my knees hurt. In fact going into the race my left knee was hurting (I blame sitting at my desk so much with this broadband paper). But coming out of the race it was the IT band connections to the knee that really killed me. Now that's settled down, left knee is still sore, but I'm pretty happy about that. Why? Cause my shins don't hurt. I ran 21K and not even a twinge. I don't think I'll ever be 100% shin splint-free, but I think having some really long recovery has made a lot of difference.