National Half Marathon 2010

I ran the National Half Marathon in DC this weekend. As you recall I sprained my ankle about a month ago and lost out on several high mileage weeks so I knew my sub 1:30:00 goal was realistic anymore.

But here is what I did do:

Overall	AG	Gender	10 km time	10 km pace	chip time	pace
402	106/605	335/2909	43:34	7:01	1:35:11	7:16

 

This is a five minute PR on a course that I think was hillier (ie slower) then the course in Atlanta which was a surprise to me. And the weather was absolutely perfect today.

The race starts at RFK which was painless to get to in the morning and then makes a clockwise loop around DC.  I really the liked the course, the first few miles involved a trip by the Capital building as the sun was still rising which looked awesome. And then the rest of the course had great crowd support from the neighborhoods and aid stations. 

The start wasn’t much of a hassle and I was able to settle into my pace but I was up towards the front so it might have been different further back.

There was a slight downhill on the second mile that I picked up some time and then I settled into a 7:10 pace for a while until the hilly section. I took things easy going up the hills but looking at my chart for pace I didn’t make up as much time going downhill as I should have.

After the hills I keep chugging along and passed the 10 mile mark in 1:12:00 (which is a PR). I tried to pick it up for the last 3 miles but that didn’t happen. Instead I lost focus around the 11 1/2 mile mark and slowed down quite a bit. 

I still put in a good effort and think I paced the race well based on my splits time remembering that the middle miles are a bit hillier.

And here are the obligatory finish photos of me looking like I am going to throw up.

 

I milled around the finish area getting some food, drinks, and then took a photo at the start line. Looking back it’s been nice to see the progress in my half marathon times. I’ve gone from a 2:02:04 to a 1:53:50 to a 1:40:54 and now a 1:35:11.

 

This race signals the end of my running focused winter and now it’s time to get back into full triathlon training mode and ramp up for the Eagleman half ironman in June where I think the plan is going to be to shoot for a 1:45:00 half marathon.