Race Reports/Encouragment/Kudos - 9 - 11 November

[Big Vic]

9-10 Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon Weekend5k

½ - APrunner (), crmrrsm28 (Cara), aaronv88 (), Becky11 (Amy), Dagny (Dagny), EddieMccoy2 (), Embroidery_Grandma (Kathy), FireWoman (), hockeygirl (Laurie), J3nn78 (), Jim B (Jim), Lisah0711 (Lisa), monte (), NitroStitch (Lisa), Qltrgrl2 (Pam) and DD (CHristine), Suited_Deuces (), thndrmatt (Matt)

Saturday, 10 Nov

10 - DVCMAUREEN (Maureen) Richmond Half Marathon, Richmond, VA
10 - Embroidery_Grandma (Kathy) Free to Breath 5K, Port Charlotte, FL
10 - Reep () Santa Barbara Half Marathon

Sunday, 11 Nov

11 - longhorns2 (Patty) San Antonio RNR Half Marathon, San Antonio, TX


GO! WISH Team GO!

[cewait]

oops - take me off the RnR list. Sorry, but the RD added a 3 mile run ON TOP of the existing entries. Rather than risk life and limb in the added crowd, I am passing on this and all future RNR stuff

[Reep]

You can add me for the Santa Barbara Half Marathon on the 10th. Current forecast is for light rain. I guess I will wear my grippy shoes.

Good luck to all the Wine and Diners. Once again I wish I lived in Florida.

[jeanigor]

Thanks for the encouragement and well wishes!!

[Tabetha]

I'm running the Downsview Half Marathon tomorrow in Toronto.
Looking forward to my last race before the WDW Half in January. Fortunately it looks like sun and mild temperatures.

[Reep]

Santa Barbara was kinder to me this year. Good report. I was trying to keep below 1:25 (tough hilly course) and do well in my age group. I ran 1:24:54 (cut it close) and got first in my age group. Weather was perfect (47 start, 61 finish) and sunny.

Now all you Wine and Diners kick some ears!

[Tabetha]

Beautiful day at the Downsview Half marathon - it seems like the course was a bit long (my Garmin put it at 13.31, others are reporting clocking it as 300m over) but I still managed to PR by 6 minutes.
This was my sister's first half marathon, and she rocked it out, so now we can re-evaluate our goals for the Marathon Weekend Half.

[Reep]

Originally Posted by Tabetha

Beautiful day at the Downsview Half marathon - it seems like the course was a bit long (my Garmin put it at 13.31, others are reporting clocking it as 300m over) but I still managed to PR by 6 minutes.
This was my sister's first half marathon, and she rocked it out, so now we can re-evaluate our goals for the Marathon Weekend Half.

Good job on the PR. Yeah, if the Garmin showed it that much over then they probably were a bit long. But, better long than short. I ran a short race and you never really feel good about it because you know your time was short too. When long you know your PR is solid.

Did it change your strategy for the half in January? If so, how?

[Tabetha]

Originally Posted by Reep

Good job on the PR. Yeah, if the Garmin showed it that much over then they probably were a bit long. But, better long than short. I ran a short race and you never really feel good about it because you know your time was short too. When long you know your PR is solid.

Did it change your strategy for the half in January? If so, how?

Good point about the PR being the real deal, I hadn't thought of it that way. There are others on the race's fb page saying that their Garmins are showing a long course as well and that some of the km markers seemed to be quite off, so the course was a bit on the wonky side.

There was a cut off point at 9km, which we had to reach by the 1:21 mark, so we set a faster clip to start than we'd been training at in order to make sure we didn't get swept at that 9km mark. We figured we could just slow down on the way back to make sure we finished... except that we didn't really slow down. We trained at 15 minutes/mile, we did this half at 13.21 minutes/mile.

So, knowing that we did that at this point in our training, and knowing that we still have 2 months to go we're going to try to train for an even better time than the 2:58:37 we just did. (Although we reserve the right to scrap any time goals on the day, and just focus on fun and photos.)

We'll do some more hill work, and bust out our Magic Miles (when they start later this month) as well as some speed training.

This sub 3 hour was a milestone for me. I had been trying to make a 2:47 or 2:50 for the Disneyland Half with my husband this year, but had a pretty nasty cramp shatter that goal. I'll take this, happily.

And I know my sis has some more speed in her. When she saw the clock as we were heading for the finish line, and realized that we had a chance at a sub 3 hour run (not realizing that the clock was showing gun, not chip time) she BUSTED IT OUT. Like, she almost left me in her dust - this from someone who just started running this year. I suspected that she was not allowing herself to tap her full potential while we've been training, and now I know...

We sprinted to the finish, and I was laughing so hard and was yelling "You're not going to beat me! You can't cross before me!" I had to push pretty hard to keep up.
Our times were identical, but my name was listed first on the results page... heh heh. A little sibling rivalry.

Great fun.

[jmasgat]

Nice races Tabetha and Reep! Tabetha, you have a great outlook on the upcoming race in January. And on the course measuring long!

I ran a race last year that measured at 13.4. I kept wondering why I was running at PR pace and my finish time was slower than the last time I ran it! The near-bummer was that I was using this race to auto-entry into NYC marathon, and at the long course length, I would have been over.

But the race organizers acknowledged the course marking error (they had not accounted for a change in the start to fix the turnaround point) and posted adjusted times at a 13.1 distance along with the actual 13.4 times. And NYC accepted my corrected time. Of course, that was for this year--no race and I was injured anyway, so in the end it didn't matter!

Maura

[Reep]

Originally Posted by Tabetha

So, knowing that we did that at this point in our training, and knowing that we still have 2 months to go we're going to try to train for an even better time than the 2:58:37 we just did. (Although we reserve the right to scrap any time goals on the day, and just focus on fun and photos.)

I might suggest starting this next race between 13 and 13.5 min/mile, but relaxed. Have fun when you go through Magic Kingdom and when you exit after mile 6 then decide if you want to buckle down and try for 13:00 or less. The second half is long and strait (and boring) so it is a great place to push ahead if you are feeling it.

On distance, I had a really disappointing race this summer. I ran a 37:24 10k, which I was thrilled about (6:01 min/mile), as I am trying to break 6:17/mile in the half. But, I noticed the course was a double loop, but the starting area (only run once) was about 0.2 miles before the loop. There was no way the course could be what they said. My GPS did confirm that the course was indeed short. So, I got my good time, but it wasn't real and it made it hard for me to take anything away from that race.

[Tabetha]

Originally Posted by Reep

I might suggest starting this next race between 13 and 13.5 min/mile, but relaxed. Have fun when you go through Magic Kingdom and when you exit after mile 6 then decide if you want to buckle down and try for 13:00 or less. The second half is long and strait (and boring) so it is a great place to push ahead if you are feeling it.

On distance, I had a really disappointing race this summer. I ran a 37:24 10k, which I was thrilled about (6:01 min/mile), as I am trying to break 6:17/mile in the half. But, I noticed the course was a double loop, but the starting area (only run once) was about 0.2 miles before the loop. There was no way the course could be what they said. My GPS did confirm that the course was indeed short. So, I got my good time, but it wasn't real and it made it hard for me to take anything away from that race.

Thanks for the advice - I did this same course at the Princess this past February, but I was so blissed out at the realization that we'd just reached the halfway point and I still had plenty of gas in the tank to finish the race that it didn't occur to me that the course was boring. I was super happy! May be a different case for me this year, but I'll be focussed on pacing my sis.
I agree, I think 13:30 or so is a solid goal to start with.
I'll be poring over my McMillan calculator training pace list this week for our conditioning runs...

Sorry to hear your course was short and you feel invalidated. That sounds completely frustrating. That said - a 37:24 10K (even a teensy bit short) kind of blows my mind...