Race Day!

This morning, my alarm went off at 4:45. I got up, put on my running clothes, made a quick smoothie, grabbed a bagel, and then drove over to run this morning's half marathon.

Why so early? Well, the race begins at approximately 7:00AM, in order to take advantage of the cooler temperatures. But every once in a while, you get a heat wave that doesn't cool off overnight. That happened to be the case this morning, as I woke up to temperatures that barely got down to 60. (Yes, I know some of you live in places that don't even get that cool at night, but it's all relative, right?)

I met up with a friend who was running her first ever half, and we got on the school bus to ride up to the start line. Getting off, it was pretty nice and cool. However, it was also pretty obvious that the temperature would warm up quite a bit once the sun peeked over the mountains. So, a few minutes before 7:00, the race director had us all get in line at the starting point.

This year, the race directors did something a little different. In past years, it was just a mass of humanity which lined up to start the race. They did try to push the crowd back to allow the elites a space in the front, but overall, it was every person for themselves. This year, however, they actually had us line up according to the time that we thought we would finish. The times were broken down by 15 minute increments, so I placed myself in the 1:30-1:45 group.

The gun sounded, and we were off! It was nice, since the first 6+ miles are mostly downhill, out of the mountain valley where we started from. Plus, early in the morning, you get a nice breeze blowing down as the cool air makes its way to the valley below. Downhill with a nice breeze behind you really lets you get going at times, and I found myself with lots of energy, letting gravity do its thing, and the breeze push me along.

All of that changed after about mile 7. This is when the course enters the valley and flattens out. It also means that you are out of the mountains all around you. So, as the sun rises, it peeks over the peaks and suddenly you find yourself running in full sunlight. You also lose the breeze behind you and start fighting the climbing temperatures. And let me tell you, once the sun came out, it really did start to heat up fast!

I was probably on pace to break 1:40 until I hit around mile 11. At this point, the race climbs very gently, but very persistently over the last two miles. On top of that, the sun decided to shine full out. While I still had a pretty good amount of energy, I could tell that my body was working a lot harder than it had earlier in the cool part of the race. I felt my pace slowing down, though I was very determined not to slow down to a walk at all.

Finally, I could see the finish line in the distance. I deliberately didn't look up at it much, at least not until the last 0.1 mile. I looked at the clock displaying the time, and saw that it read 1:43. So I pushed myself the last few feet, crossing at a time of 1:43 and a few seconds. Checking my results later, I can say that I finished 190th overall, 28th in my gender division.

This time represents my personal best. I really feel that, if the temperature had been even five degrees cooler throughout, I would have broken 1:40. But there is no use crying over spilled milk, and really, who can complain about just finishing a half marathon?