trailbreaker half
this morning i headed over to bethesda park to see the marathoners run by. i had some friends in the race, but i also wanted to see what folks were wearing. dressing for mid-40’s can be tricky. after most of the marathoners passed by, i headed over to get registered.
i warmed up with a mile before the start and toed the line. the race started and i was out like a jackrabbit. 5:50 for the first mile…ugh! well, i had hung it out there so i may as well see what i could muster. we headed out with mainly a tailwind. at about 4 miles it began to sprinkle, which was no big deal considering how much heat i was generating. i felt bad for the volunteers and spectators. standing outside in that mess wouldn’t have been comfortable.
jim came up on my shoulder at about 5.5 miles and we headed up to the turn around. a guy who was ahead of us both stopped to drink at the aid station, a sure sign that he was struggling. jim motored hard out of the turn around and i ended catching the guy who stopped for water at around 8 miles. by this point, we were running into a headwind in a driving rain.
the last significant uphill finishes slightly after 10 miles. i kept focusing on keeping a quick turn over for my legs and trying to lean slightly forward into the wind. i passed over the bridge at bethesda park and had only a mile to go. i got a little tripped up in a dirt section of trail and was running on empty. with less than a half mile to go, another runner came up on my shoulder. we crossed the last street before frame park and he let loose. i did what i could but he had much more still in the tank than i did.
i ended up finishing in 1:27:03, which was only 26 seconds slower than my personal record set on the Trailbreaker course in 2002. the effort ranks as my second best half marathon time. overall i finished 13th out of 371 finishers. in the 30-34 age group i was 4th with the guy who passed me in the waning moments of the race taking 3rd. (the guy who won was in our age group so depending on how you look at it…i was either 3rd or 4th as some races exclude the overall winner from age group awards)
overall, the result is a good sign of fitness for BOSTON. i need to dial it back and avoid the jackrabbit start…especially at BOSTON. from looking at race calculators, i’ve got a good shot at running a good time at BOSTON. i’ll have to wait to see what the weather looks like, but my guess right now is that i’d try to stick on 7 minute pace for as long as i can at BOSTON. (16 days until BOSTON)
today’s run also finished the month with a new personal record for miles in the month of march. i ended up with 244 miles and my old record was 213. i now stand about 16 miles short of 25,000 miles.