Gulf Beach Half Marathon Race Recap
I had a busy day before the race - run 3 miles, drop off kid1 for volunteering, grocery store, bake a dessert, pick kid1 up, haircut for kid2 that had been rescheduled, a church function, drop the kids off at my mother's, then finally drive an hour to my sister's to sleep before the race. And somewhere in there I needed to pack my stuff for the race.
I woke up with the start of an ingrown toenail - what the heck! No problem the day before, but as soon as I stepped out of bed I felt the discomfort. I dealt with it as best as I could and hoped it would get better and not worse. Most of the day was fine, if busy. There was a bit of a scramble getting the dessert out of the oven and cooled enough to pack, so we were running a little late getting dd1 before dd2's haircut. This meant that I forgot to pack my backup dinner. The church event included dinner, but I was going to pack myself some chicken since I didn't know what was being served. It ended up being pizza and potato chips with iceberg salad. Not a great choice for me, but I hoped my stomach would survive.
Finally made it to my sister's at 11pm and got settled in. She's just 10 minutes from the race, which was great for me. Mornings and I just don't get along! I checked in here one last time and really appreciated the messages of encouragement! Weather was supposed to be 60F at 8am with relatively low humidity, so happy to see that!
Five o'clock wake up for me (so glad I didn't have the hour drive in he morning!) and my husband had coffee ready for me. Ate my 2 slices of toast with peanut butter and banana and tried to wake up. Packet pick up was 6:30-7:30 with race start at 8. We left just before 6:30 to make sure we got a good parking space and leave time for my warm-up. Only a ten minute drive and I still needed the port-a-potty right when we got there.
Picked up my bib and shirt and hopped back in the car because it was cold out!! My hands were freezing. Warmed up for a few minutes then hit the port-a-potty again before heading out for my pre-race warm-up at 7:10am. My husband decided he'd run my warm-up with me, so I had some company. As Billy suggested, I did 1.5 miles easy with 3 short surges to race pace in the last half mile. The race was an out and back, so it wasn't really possible for my husband to see me multiple times, so he planned on staying near the start/finish.
I had a pack of sports beans and some water about 15 minutes before the start. There was plenty of time for a couple more stops at the port-a-potty before lining up. This was a smaller race, so there were no pacers or signs for lining up - everyone just kind of mushed in, so I tried to make sure I was in the back half. I had my phone for music, but it had been acting up for about a week where it wouldn't charge all the way and/or would drain the battery quickly. I had done my last long run of 10 miles without music, so I wasn't worried if it gave me trouble. That was good, since when I put my earbud in at the start - nothing. Oh well.
The weather was nice - it had warmed up a bit and was about 61F at start time. I started off slower than race pace. In the past I've always gone out too fast, so I tried to keep it easy. This felt good. At one point someone was just ahead of me with music playing. I found myself following along then glanced at my watch -whoops! Slow down, it's too soon to speed up. Just before mile 4 the route went onto the boardwalk of the beach. There were nice views of the beach and water with a few sailboats out. We were on the boardwalk for about a mile before heading back to the roads. I kept an easy pace for the first 6 miles and then picked it up over the next 3 miles. I had most of a pack of sports beans spread out between miles 4 and 8 along with 8 ounces of skratch. I took water at each of the water stops.
Around mile ten I started slowing. I'd glance at my watch - oops, slow, pick it up a little. Which I did for awhile until I realized - oops, slowing again. I can see the evidence of this in my pace graph - a series of peaks and valleys. Hmmm, maybe the music would have helped at this point. I don't know.
The course was mostly flat, there was really just one hill through a park that we hit about mile 11.75. I kept my head up and kept moving. My goal was to not walk. Though I slowed, I managed to chomp quite a few people who stopped to walk up the hill. At the top of the hill the course turned out of the park and I found myself walking - What?! It was completely bizarre - I was running, turned the corner and then I wasn't. I've never had this happen before - if I've started walking it's because I've consciously decided I needed a break and couldn't keep going. I'm sure if I could have seen my face at that moment I would have looked confused. I was definitely having a conversation with myself, "what the heck? why are you walking?" No response... I let myself walk to the next telephone pole then got moving again. Just a mile left to the finish.
Somewhere along this last mile my husband was by the side of the road trying to take pictures. So he'd take some, then run up ahead of me, take some more. Then cross the road and run ahead, take some more. Meanwhile I'm cursing in my head, "enough already! leave me alone! I'm tired of pretending I'm smiling!" I'm glad he was there though. He's done a fabulous job supporting my running and I do appreciate it.
I had a bit of a kick left for the last tenth of a mile to the finish. I nearly took out a spectator though. We were running in the breakdown lane (roads open to traffic) which opened up to some parking on the right. Toward the end there were people lining both sides and it got pretty narrow and a woman started backing into the runner's area! I shouted out and she moved, thankfully, because I was. not. stopping.
Official finish time was 2:15:35 which is a PR by 5:43!
I'm super happy with this. I feel that I ran a good race - started out easy and built the pace up. While I did slow some after mile 10, it was nothing like the go out quick and die later of previous races. First half of the race - 1:09:35, second half - 1:06:00.
A huge thank you to
@DopeyBadger for making my training plan and educating me to help me achieve this result. I really appreciate it!
Just ten weeks of this training plan since my last half and I dropped over five minutes! It works!