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Race Result
| Racer: |
Brad Payne |
| Race: |
National Half-Marathon |
| Date: |
Saturday, March 21, 2009 |
| Location: |
Washington, DC |
| Race Type: |
Run - Half Marathon |
| Age Group: |
Male 40 - 44 |
| Time: |
1:52:41 |
| Overall Place: |
1302 / 4142 |
| Age Group Place: |
104 / 265 |
| Comment: |
Glad to be back! PR too! |
Race Report:
It had been almost four years since I've completed a long race with the usual suspects prolonging my absence: responsibilities at work, at home, and injury.
Suspecting that the middle age weight gain was the root cause of many of my ankle and knee injuries, the wife and I did nutrisystem for four months. I lost 22 pounds and immediately noticed improved strength and speed in my running. My heart rate was running 10-15 bpm lower at similar paces from my early days with RATS. Last spring I ran my fastest 5K in 15 years.
Efforts to run a fall marathon were thwarted by a proposal at work. I managed to juggle the demand up until I got to the 10-12 mile range where I simply burned out from the lack of sleep. Over the holidays I regained 8 of those 22 lost pounds so it was back on the nutrisystem horse for a couple of months. The holiday weight was gone in five weeks. The diet works!
So I heard about the National Half Marathon at work and had exactly ten weeks to train for it using the FIRST program I read about in Runner's World. Essentially, three workouts a week, and I rode my trainer on off days. Even though I had not run a half marathon since 2005, I immediately made a PR my goal. Its not all that fast so I figured it was an easy mark:)
The training was good even though it never seemed to fail to be bitterly cold on mornings I wanted to run up-tempo. Not even a hint of injury.
However, the hardest part of the race turned out to be packet pickup. I had a meeting in Reston Friday afternoon, and the packets could only be picked up Friday 11-8. The risk of not getting there was too high but luckily a crew from Reston Runners volunteered to pick up race packets for us saps trapped in the office. Thanks!
Saturday morning started dark and cold. I was not comfortable with the idea of wearing my preferred racing outfit (better suited for temps above 40) so I stuck with my training tights hoping to mitigate the chances of a muscle pull. I also wanted to "take care of business" before I got to the race site so I went for a short 1/2 mile run in my neighborhood to get things moving. It was a wise move as there was not nearly enough porta potties at the race site as evidenced by long lines and other race reports.
I went out slow the first mile and then started picking it up at mile 2. I felt strong until the last of a series of climbs around mile 5-6. I did falter a bit but regained my 8:30 pace in the 7th mile. For the remainder of the race I repeated the mantra that "the training was good." It was also at this point in the race that I could feel hot spots forming in my feet. They had not been an issue during training, and I had forgotten to lube them up pre-race. Guess I was out of practice in pre-race rituals.
Coming south towards the Capitol I just focused on maintaining pace and pleased to know that the PR was in reach barring catastrophe. Around mile 11, I began to really struggle. I was cramping up a bit, but I muscled through. The sight of the stadium lifted my spirits and I pushed through the line four minutes faster than my previous best from 2004. However, I was very wobbly and didn't trust myself to drive for another hour. For the rest of the day I was "broken," and not much help around the house. I was sore in places I had never felt before, my hips especially. Just got off the trainer (Sunday morning) hoping that 15 minutes would loosen them up.
I'm hoping my heart rate monitor was wrong. I didn't look at it during the race, but it was at 175-190 for the final 12 miles. (~165 was normal for this pace during training.) Had I seen that during the race it might have psyched me out. I had not noticed that it slipped down towards my stomach so I'm hoping it was measuring "other activities," because, if correct, I basically rode the edge of a heart attack for nearly two hours!
Mile 1: 9:16
Mile 2: 8:19
Miles 3-5: 25:18 (didn't see mile markers ~8:26)
Mile 6: 8:46
Mile 7: 8:55
Mile 8: 8:17
Mile 9: 8:31
Mile 10: 8:17
Mile 11: 8:34
Mile 12: 8:53
Mile 13: 8:37
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