Saturday was my first half marathon of 2011 - the Sam Costa half. It is one of (if not the) the oldest half marathons in Indiana and Indy Runners is the steward of the race so as a board member I was involved in the setup on Thursday and Friday and some of the tear down on Monday, but I got to run on Saturday.
Even though I would not normally be concerned about a 3 hour time limit for a half anymore, I was for this race. I had an upper respiratory infection that I was (am) still recovering from and knew I wouldn't be able to run the whole way because I hadn't been able to run more than a few miles since it started. But I knew I could go the distance, it was just a question of how much walking.
I decided I would run as far as I could to "buy" time to walk at the end. I started out at a great pace - my first mile was 11:50. At 7 miles I was at 1:24 and some change on the clock which was my fastest official 7 miles to date. But my lungs ran away after I crossed the 7 mile timing mats and I knew I had to walk. I kept a 14:00 pace walk up. After mile 11 I had to use the inhaler. Not good. My mile 12 a guy was asking if he needed to call 911 because my breathing was funny...I was like no way - not in the last mile...I crossed the finish line in 2:50:35. It was in the middle of the pack of my half marathon times and only 4 minutes slower than last year's Costa.
I spent the rest of the day not feeling (and according to my husband not looking) great, but I survived.
The next half is this weekend in Dearborn, MI - the Martian Invasion of Races. The course is flatter than Costa and I am another week out from the infection. I only used the inhaler once yesterday and that was after a 9 mile training run (14:00 pace group walk, but still). Hopefully I will be faster than for the Costa...and I still have a half marathon goal of busting 2:40 this year.
Even though I would not normally be concerned about a 3 hour time limit for a half anymore, I was for this race. I had an upper respiratory infection that I was (am) still recovering from and knew I wouldn't be able to run the whole way because I hadn't been able to run more than a few miles since it started. But I knew I could go the distance, it was just a question of how much walking.
I decided I would run as far as I could to "buy" time to walk at the end. I started out at a great pace - my first mile was 11:50. At 7 miles I was at 1:24 and some change on the clock which was my fastest official 7 miles to date. But my lungs ran away after I crossed the 7 mile timing mats and I knew I had to walk. I kept a 14:00 pace walk up. After mile 11 I had to use the inhaler. Not good. My mile 12 a guy was asking if he needed to call 911 because my breathing was funny...I was like no way - not in the last mile...I crossed the finish line in 2:50:35. It was in the middle of the pack of my half marathon times and only 4 minutes slower than last year's Costa.
I spent the rest of the day not feeling (and according to my husband not looking) great, but I survived.
The next half is this weekend in Dearborn, MI - the Martian Invasion of Races. The course is flatter than Costa and I am another week out from the infection. I only used the inhaler once yesterday and that was after a 9 mile training run (14:00 pace group walk, but still). Hopefully I will be faster than for the Costa...and I still have a half marathon goal of busting 2:40 this year.
Epilogue: the Martian was terrible...worse than Sam Costa. Didn't help that the course was long, but that wasn't my problem. Oh well - there are more halfs to come.
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