I signed up for this race with some trepidation, because I hadn’t exactly been training for a running race: I had been doing almost exclusively AeT runs for the preceding 8 weeks and had recently returned from a 10-day, very lazy Hawaii trip. However, I had also just come off an intense summer training and racing period… So I decided to give it a shot. This was a great opportunity to beat my Mercer Half time (1:42) from 8 months prior, and hopefully earn the right to train at a higher V-Dot!
GOALS/STRATEGY
Jill built a race plan based on:
- My previous Half Marathon (Mercer 2007 – 8 months prior) time of 1:42 (7:47 pace)
- My previous 10k (Halloween Run in Olympia – 1 year prior) time of 48 mins (7:43 pace)
- My run split time from the Black Diamond Olympic Triathlon (2 months prior) of 46 minutes (7:24 pace)
- The fact that I had lost 6 pounds and 5 body fat percentage points since the Mercer Half 8 months prior
The plan: Run 7:10 – 7:30 pace for the first few (hilly) miles, being careful to stay at or below my lactate threshold (LT) heart rate, which we estimated to be 175. Once I got to the flats on Lake Washington Blvd, kick it in and try to maintain 7:00 to 7:05 pace (again, staying under LT) until the last 3 miles and then redline it to the finish. Time goal: under 1:35 with a negative split.
This plan FREAKED ME OUT, because as I mentioned, I had not run at those paces for a long time. Not to mention the fact that it sounded really painful…
NUTRITION
I decided not to wear a Fuel Belt this time and instead rely on aid stations for hydration. I carried 2 HammerGels with me, which I planned to take at 35 minutes (which is when I normally need to start fueling based on experience) and 50 minutes, with the rest of my fuel coming from Gatorade and gels at the aid stations. This plan worked out just fine.
WARM UP
It was a perfect day for racing – clear and chilly and very little wind. I showed up a good hour and 15 minutes early to bolster my Parking Karma and so I would have plenty of time to warm-up (as you’ll see below, it takes me quite awhile to warm-up…). I did a solid 30 minutes of warm-up: 10 minutes of AeT and 20 minutes of strides to try to kick start the ol’ VO2 system.
My warm-up took me right up to the start time – I had about 2 minutes to jockey for position in the crowd and try to get as close to the starting line as possible. As discussed below, turns out this wasn’t very close (a good half a block back), and my inability to get closer to the front was a tactical blunder and lesson learned.
THE FIRST HALF (10k)
After they blew the starting horn, it took me almost 2 minutes to cross the mats, and even then I had to bob and weave my way past thousands of runners in front of me. In fact, after about 2 minutes of this, I and a bunch of other maniacs took to the sidewalk and dodged pedestrians, trash cans and parking meters as we sprinted the length of 5th Avenue. A novel experience, but it put my average pace for the first couple of miles north of 8 minutes/mile – much slower than was dictated by The Plan! However, Jill warned me to be conservative in the first few hilly miles of this race, and it worked: by the time I got off I-90 and onto the flats of Lake Washington Boulevard, I was feeling fresh, picking people off and ready to kick it in!
Split 1 (10k) time: 00:49:17.5 (7:55 pace)
THE SECOND HALF (6.9 miles)
The second half of the race is a bit of a blur – I felt pretty good and I picked up the pace considerably. I was finally warmed up and it was now easier to regulate my HR. I was also starting to let my HR creep up past my (estimated) LT to see how it felt. And it felt great. I kept my HR around 180 until I got to Mile 10, at which point I redlined it and gave it all I had. This is when it really started to HURT, but I was picking people off and it felt awesome to pour on the speed. I struggled through the last hill coming up Mercer under the Aurora bridge and then finally sprinted into the stadium with ZERO left in the tank. I crossed the line and got a great welcome from Jill and Mike!
Split 2 (6.9 miles) time: 00:44:34.8 (6:27 pace)
OVERALL RESULTS
|
Overall Place
|
Division Place
|
Chip Time
|
Official Time
(Gun time)
|
Split 1 (10k)
|
Split 2 (6.9 mi)
|
|
260
|
46/717
|
01:33:52.3
(7:09 pace)
|
01:35:50.0
|
00:49:17.5
(7:55 pace)
|
00:44:34.8
(6:27 pace)
|
Overall, a great result and a PR by 9 minutes! Yeah!
