Sunday, March 15, 2009

race report: new bedford half marathon

Race Site
Distance: 13.1 miles
Time: 2:01:00 (watch), 2:01:29 (gun time)
Pace: 9:14/mile or 9:16/mile
Overall: 1446/1951
Age: 112/147
Weather: ~50 degrees

Mile Splits
1. 9:18:82
2. 10:02.86
3. 9:52.41
4. 9:45.59
5. 9:29.99
6. 9:21.51
7. 9:06.13
8. 9:00.19
9. 9:24.68
10. 8:58.46
11. 8:29.43
12. 8:42.15
13. 8:42.34
.1 0:0:46.32

Today I PRed, beating my previous best of 2:17:16 by 16 minutes. Not too shabby, considering that I went to a Pi Day party last night and slept about five hours. One of these days I'll find out how I'll do when actually sleeping 8 hours and hydrating properly!

During the first two miles, I started cramping up because of having eaten a banana too soon before racing and sulking because of the warm (and it's sad that I consider 50 degrees warm after a winter of outdoor running) weather. After tying my pink longsleeved shirt around my waist, I invented a new game for myself: focusing on the next pink article of clothing ahead of me and aiming to pass that person. I ran negative splits for the next six miles, slowed down a bit at a big hill, then ran more negative splits until hitting the last hill of the race. That hill kicked my butt--I started cramping up in the middle of that too. Near the end I started chasing this crazy old dude who started running near me at mile 8, but he surged ahead after the hill.

I'm psyched about improving so much this year...next up: the Cohasset 10K on April 5. I'm hoping to bring down my half-marathon time another 16 minutes by the time the BAA half marathon rolls around on Columbus Day weekend.

3 comments:

run.happy said...

nice report back. whew. was it joyful?

Kristina Buenafe said...

Yup--but I got supersick a couple of days after. I'm recovered now, and I bought my Lululemon reward yesterday :)

James Tsai said...

wow! you finished very strong at the end. Great split times. Did you track those yourself, or were they recorded?