Sunday, February 22, 2015

Last Chance Half Marathon 2015

Last year I raced A LOT!  This year I have very few races on the schedule with all of them intended to be RACED!  Today I ran a half marathon in which I had very high hopes.  My training has been going very well, I've got some speed going on, and I really thought I might be able to bust out a very fast race.

Brrr, I'm cold.

Unfortunately, mother nature had other ideas.  Yesterday we got dumped on, approximately eight inches of snow.  (Check out our playtime in the snow here.)  And then this morning the temperature was 13 degrees at the start of the race.  The race course is a one mile loop that you do again and again.  Honestly, I thought they would have cleared it better, but a good half of it was snow covered.  Not just a little snow covered, like ankle-deep in some places.  It was like running through soft sand.  It took a lot of energy and really zapped your pace.

Nonetheless, I tried my best.  The parts that were clear I ran hard and fast.  The parts that were snowy and slippery, I found the clearest spots and picked up my knees.  Although it wasn't as fast as I hoped, my paces were consistent - my slowest mile was 8:12 and my fastest mile was 7:59.  I latched on to some other girls who were running the same pace as me and we pushed each other to keep it up.  It really helped the miles pass by.

One of the girls I ran with.  We've already exchanged some texts and it looks like we'll see each other at the marathon.

In the end I ran a 1:45:39.  Not bad.  Not what I was wanting or had trained for.  I was the 7th overall female.  The winning female time was 1:37:30, if that tells you how rough the conditions were.  Unfortunately, right now, I do not have another half marathon on the schedule this year.  Maybe this fall I can find a good one and go after a big PR.

It was so cold I had icicles on my eyelashes.

 Top ten finish.  Not bad.

1 comment:

Val said...

I have three thoughts:

1. I am right with you in being SO over winter. I'm a hater.

2. Running is crazy. Running outside in the snow is crazier. You're a nut.

3. Super impressive times, all! I'd have been dead and frozen solid on the first lap, back in the slush. Way to push through, Mer!