Two days before race day I started to question if I was ready for this race at the goal of 1:55:00.
True story: I had an A, B, and C goal for this race. And the A goal I was clearly waffling on the last week of so of this plan. My B goal was to PR this race course and the C goal was to just finish and have fun. I talked to some of my most trusted race friends and they encouraged me to go for the A goal. So, I went to bed early and woke up early on race morning with the idea to do just that.
I ended up at the race early so that I could do a nice warm-up on the way to my running group pre-race photos. I first found my fellow BibRave Pros and took a group pic with them. And, then it was time to take a pic with over 60 of my best running friends from She Runs This Town (SRTT). Seeing all of these people really energized me and gave me the confidence to get down in the corral between the 1:50 and 2:00 hour pacers. I ended up lining up with one of my SRTT friends, Chloe and that helped, having her there beside me, at first chatting and then just standing in silence as we mentally prepared.
When the gun went off, it took a bit to get across the timing mat, which is always hard. I tried to just take in everything around me and be in the moment, but also paying attention to my pace. It is hard to be patient at the beginning of the race and I wanted to make sure I didn’t start out too fast. The trick to this race was most of the elevation is mid-to later in the race. Many had decided to bank some time on the front end so they could slow down on the hills. I opted not to do this and tried to stay in my desired pace range on the front half. The back half was mainly hills with the last 2 miles a stretch of mostly flat or slight incline (and a strong headwind)! The last .20 is uphill and I was so happy I felt good enough to run up that hill. I heard my husband yelling for me with less than .10 left and crossed over the finish line very, very happy. I knew I had given it my best and I had fun- a win-win in my book.
Turns out I trusted the plan and the science and it worked! I almost nailed it with a time of 1:56 (I blame being off one minute from my A goal due to the two stops for a bourbon shot and Powerade! All jokes aside, I felt great the entire race. I can’t believe this worked and that I ran this pace after completing a 100-mile race 6 months ago! While I don’t think I’ll ever catch my half marathon PR again, I definitely think I could get to 1:50 if I used this plan again.
Thanks to COROS and my coach Stacey Gross for the guidance, wisdom, and support. Let me know if you have questions about the methods. I’m happy to try to answer them.
Bluegrass BAMR 