COLD!!!! It was cold Sunday morning. . . that was the first thing that hit my mind when I left my house to ride to the race with Troy and Melissa Smith. Troy asked me what I was wearing when we knew it would be cold, and I said, "oh, shorts and a long sleeve technical t-shirt". .I am not a details person, so I left out the gloves and head/ear warmers. . sorry Troy and Melissa. (They looked colder than me). :)
Got to the race and parked in a dungeon of a parking that would prove to take us longer to get out of after the race than the race itself. Anyway, we walked over to the start line, saw quite a few people that we know and just chatted with everyone till it was time to line up.
My goal for this race was to break 1:49:58, which was my previous personal record for a half marathon. So I lined up about 15 feet back from the 1:40 half marathon pace runner (some races have pacers, that hold the pace time up, so you know how face to run, if you wish). Secretly, I wanted to break 1:40, but I was going to be happy with anything faster than 1:45.
The gun goes off and the normal accordian of human bodies starts. .people want to run when the gun goes off but when you have 600 people in front of you and 4000+ behind you that causes for an accordian effect, where you run then walk, run then walk, etc. . .
I cross the official starting line and hit my watch. The first mile went by pretty quick, but my watch showed 8:15 and I knew that I would have to be much faster than that on the next 12.1 miles if I wanted to break1:45. .
I missed the mile two marker, not sure what I was doing to miss it .. oh wait, I know. . I was worried about the huge hill that was up next. . needless to say, I missed the mile 2 marker so didn't really know how fast I was running at that point. . so up the hill and then on to mile 3, at mile 3 I could see that mile 2 and 3 were around the 7:45 pace, and that was much better. . . I tend to speed up as the miles go by, so I was happy with those two miles.
The course takes you basically from Crown Center northa little and then you head back south towards the Plaza. After Liberty Memorial hill, it was either gradual uphills or downhills. .with a big section through westport and to the plaza that was down hill. . .
My legs felt tired from the training that I had been doing the week prior, but I knew that my aerobic base was big enough and that I was in shape, just needed my legs to hold together.
At the mile 6 point, I could see the 1:40 half marathon pacer ahead by about 200 feet, two girls running right in front of me were talking about the pacer and how he was running faster than the splits he was suppose to be running. They said that we were right on the 1:40 pace, so that felt good to know.
After running behind them for a mile or so, I picked up the pace to see if I could catch the 1:40 pace guy (he actually holds up a little sign that says 1:40). Anyway, the miles clicked by and I started to pass a lot more than were passing me.
Coming back to the Crown Center area, I knew the finish couldn't be far. . mile 11 came by and my time were picking up. At mile 12, I started to kick it up a notch and somewhere in that mile I caught the 1:40 pace guy, so I knew that I had every chance of breaking 1:40. At mile 13 I could see that I was going to do it and my mile 12 to 13 mile was at 6:58 pace.
I came running down towards the finish line and could see the clock and knew officially that I would break 1:40... 1:39:09!!!!!!!!! PERSONAL RECORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I promised Tory and Melissa that I would get photos, so I had to find/run my way back to the car and grab the camera to get back finish line. This was Melissa's first half marathon and Troy said they (he was running with her for support) would finish around 2:25 or so. . Well, they finished in 2:10!!!!!!!!!! So I missed the photos of them running, but hopefully the official photographer of the race got some good ones for them. Congrats Melissa! Oh congrats Troy too. :)
