Finished the Half Marathon with a time of 2:09:41 , pace 9:53
Bib 12799
Splits
5K : 30:28, pace 9:49
6 mile: 58:10, pace 9:35
10 mile: 1:36:50, pace 9:41
13.1 mile: 2:09:41 pace 10:36
Strava SPLIT time Range:
mile 1-6: 9:15 - 9:39
mile 7 : 10:19
mile 8: 9:11
mile 9 : 10:05
mile 10 : 9:52
mile 11-13: 10:12 - 10:54
Ranking
Overall: 2171/10048
Division (M40-44): 204/613
Gender Ranking: 1345/4090
Division (M40-44): 204/613
Gender Ranking: 1345/4090
SA marathon has a 1mile ascent 5.5 to 6.5 mile , 8.5 to 9 and then 10.5 to 11. Then its mostly downhill to finish. None of the hills are too steep, it was a bit at mile 10.5 but nothing like Austin. Also the donwhill are gradual nothing too steep.
Plan: Start at good pace and get momentum, running by feel and not look at watch, try to get to first hill 5.5 and then run to 6.5 mile marker with decent time. Same strategy to run past hill at 8.5 and get to the next hill with good speed. Run to top of 11.5 and then coast the downhill to finish. Since the water breaks were every two miles, take water sips every stop and take gu jell at 4,8 and if felt like then also at 12 mile. Overall strategy: Start fast and get momentum, keep pace and do ok on steep hills (which were for short segments) and focus to get to 11.5 mile marker since rest was easy downhill.
What went well: Ran as per feel and focused on starting well and keeping the momentum. Took layers of clothes but removed them promptly as temp increased. Took GU Jells as per plan but not at 12 mile since I did not feel like it. Did not push too hard and kept some runners in sight but did not panic when I lost them.
What could have been better: Overall things went as per training, no surprises. Maybe revisit layers of clothes and see if I can get sleeves that can be removed so i can layer downgrade nicely rather than different peices of clothing which makes it more rigid.
Overall experience on race day: Race start was supposed to be at 7:15 am. I took early meal (peanut butter and jam sandwich and a banana) at 4am. Then got up at 5:15 and did some stretching and then got ready and too uber to get to race start at 6:15. I had some water in a bottle and sipped on it for 20 mins and took rest room break. Got into my corral start at 6:40. I went through my normal warmup routine and then got into line at 7am. Since i did not drink any more water i did not need restroom break till i got back to hotel room. Previous night i had light dinner so overall was feeling OK. This marathon took a bit longer to let all the corral go, it was 7:40am by the time i got my chance to run. I started by run with a focus to start well and get some speed going and keep the gas peddle on while not pressuring by looking at the watch. At mile 5k i felt i had good speed and rythum (i felt i was going at 9 min mile but later results showed it was not). Ran strong past the first elevations at mile 5.5-6.5. Felt strong to mile 10. After that I started getting a bit sore, and running got a bit slower. At that point running past some more hill at 10.5 I just focused on not getting any sore muscles and finished the race without injury. At the finish line there were some foam rollers and I used those to get stretcehed out. It took an hour after race finish to get an uber and get back to hotel. I was sore but I could still go out to seaworld and the next day i was sore but not injured !
Key Takeaways:
Plan: Start at good pace and get momentum, running by feel and not look at watch, try to get to first hill 5.5 and then run to 6.5 mile marker with decent time. Same strategy to run past hill at 8.5 and get to the next hill with good speed. Run to top of 11.5 and then coast the downhill to finish. Since the water breaks were every two miles, take water sips every stop and take gu jell at 4,8 and if felt like then also at 12 mile. Overall strategy: Start fast and get momentum, keep pace and do ok on steep hills (which were for short segments) and focus to get to 11.5 mile marker since rest was easy downhill.
What went well: Ran as per feel and focused on starting well and keeping the momentum. Took layers of clothes but removed them promptly as temp increased. Took GU Jells as per plan but not at 12 mile since I did not feel like it. Did not push too hard and kept some runners in sight but did not panic when I lost them.
What could have been better: Overall things went as per training, no surprises. Maybe revisit layers of clothes and see if I can get sleeves that can be removed so i can layer downgrade nicely rather than different peices of clothing which makes it more rigid.
Overall experience on race day: Race start was supposed to be at 7:15 am. I took early meal (peanut butter and jam sandwich and a banana) at 4am. Then got up at 5:15 and did some stretching and then got ready and too uber to get to race start at 6:15. I had some water in a bottle and sipped on it for 20 mins and took rest room break. Got into my corral start at 6:40. I went through my normal warmup routine and then got into line at 7am. Since i did not drink any more water i did not need restroom break till i got back to hotel room. Previous night i had light dinner so overall was feeling OK. This marathon took a bit longer to let all the corral go, it was 7:40am by the time i got my chance to run. I started by run with a focus to start well and get some speed going and keep the gas peddle on while not pressuring by looking at the watch. At mile 5k i felt i had good speed and rythum (i felt i was going at 9 min mile but later results showed it was not). Ran strong past the first elevations at mile 5.5-6.5. Felt strong to mile 10. After that I started getting a bit sore, and running got a bit slower. At that point running past some more hill at 10.5 I just focused on not getting any sore muscles and finished the race without injury. At the finish line there were some foam rollers and I used those to get stretcehed out. It took an hour after race finish to get an uber and get back to hotel. I was sore but I could still go out to seaworld and the next day i was sore but not injured !
Key Takeaways:
- Race pace is going to only as good as training pace. Its good to set expectations based on training.
- Training runs were mostly 11 min/mile first few weeks, after making some changes i got faster to around 10 min/mile during last couple of weeks and race did I did 9:53 min/mile
- Training with wt lifting was great since I did not get any injuries.
- Two month of training is short time to go from running once a week for 4-5 miles to 4x week with increasing miles in the long runs.
- Need a pre-training prep time of running 3x week with strength training for 6 weeks or so ideally.
- If want to run at target pace for race then need to plan both pre-training and training accordingly.
- Work on finding layering with sleeves -- its more modular and so more flexible.
- Look at recovering compression sleeves -- see if it actually helpful
- Race week dont do any bootcamp , just do a couple of walks and lots of rest !
