Half Marathon #4

Last Sunday I ran my 4th half marathon, the Dayton River Corridor Classic. I knew I wanted to do a fall race again this year, it was cheap and I knew I had a place to stay in Dayton (Mom's house!) so it would work out great. Not to mention, training in August and September is MUCH better than winter/early spring training and, other than my sprained ankle a few months ago, my training went pretty well. I did my long runs about a half a minute slower than my first half marathon training, but otherwise I've done pretty well with training this time around.

Ok, so onto the race! Saturday my mom, Kaitlyn and I went to the race expo. It was small but sufficient and the swag bags were great -- a tech shirt, a nice hat, lots of little freebies and I won a door prize -- a $54 light up running vest so I can be seen when I run in the dark! It's pretty sweet! We went to Olive Garden for lunch so I could "carb up" and then to a little fall festival near mom's house. We had soup at Panera for dinner, relaxed for a few hours at home and then went to bed early.

Everything went smoothly the morning of the race...Kaitlyn was excited to get ready (she even made me a "Go Mom, go!" sign) and we made it out the door almost on time. They dropped me off at the race (while they went to get breakfast), I only had to nervous pee once (new record!), I ran a very short warm up, stretched out a little, lined up and we were off! I feel like I had JUST enough time to get ready, but not enough time to get nervous...perfect! :) 

The race wasn't huge (maybe 1200 runners?) so the start wasn't too jammed up like at GCM. I was hoping to run near 9:00 minute miles, but I felt very relaxed and wasn't in a big rush to get out in the open.

Mile 1: 8:54
Mile 2: 9:04
Mile 3: 9:07
Mile 4: 9:06

We pretty quickly had to cross two overpasses, which meant UP hill, but then a nice down hill, so that wasn't too bad. We wove through some streets the first few miles, then hit the bike path around mile 3.5-4...I love running on bike paths. I don't know why, it just feels like home to me. So many pretty colored trees to look at, a smooth, flat trail and a little bit of shade. It was also around this time when I had to shed my jacket, which was a little tricky with my headphone wires, so I had to slow down, but apparently not as slow as I thought.

Mile 5: 9:08
Mile 6: 8:59
Mile 7: 9:13

Up until around mile 7 I was feeling pretty good...I took my Shot Blocks between mile 6-7, which is quite the task trying to chew those chunky things while huffing and puffing for air! I made sure to get them in though before the next water stop.

Mile 8: 9:27
Mile 9: 9:49
Mile 10: 9:54

These ^^^ were the rough miles, both mentally and physically. It was an out-n-back course and it felt like it took FOREVER to get to the turn around point. Then on the way back, there was a decent size hill to go up, around mile 9, which I ended up walking up! I was just zonked, my legs were tired and I wanted to finish strong so I opted to walk instead of wear myself out on the hill.

Mile 11: 9:20
Mile 12: 9:40

In the home stretch! I felt great at mile 11...the end was within reach! But then, I got to mile 12...which started off with a hill...and thus, a little walking. Oops.

Mile 13: 8:53

My mom and Kaitlyn were waiting for me around mile 13 and boy was I happy to see them!

Mile 0.21: 1:39

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Watch stats: 13.21 miles: 2:02:21 (9:15 pace)
Official race stats: 13.1 miles: 2:02:21 --- 8th/43 in my age group

So, half marathon #4 is in the books! It wasn't a PR, but it was my second fastest half marathon time, so I'll take it. I would totally run this race again...it was beautiful, had nice goodies, great weather and seemed organized pretty well.

Half marathon #5 is right around the corner in 3.5 weeks! At this point, I'm trying to decide if I want to train hard and go for a PR or take it easy and just have fun with it. We shall see. :o)