HMG Doc Rock Half Marathon Race Recap
I ran a half marathon this weekend and it was awesome. I didn't register for it until last week since I was seeing how well my body recovered from my half ironman 3 weeks ago. I have only run about 4 times since April 1st, so I was interested to see what kind of time I could pull off. Of course it was windy and cold on race morning, but it didn't rain thank goodness.
My biggest time goal for the race was to break 1:56 since that was my last half marathon time. Other than that I wasn't sure what I could do. My running partner told me she was aiming for a 1:50 and I didn't think I could hold that pace, so I took off with her at the starting line and told her to go run her race about half a mile in. I had a pace chart for a 1:52 printed off as my aggressive goal, but planned to just hang on as long as I could and see what happened. When I hit the first mile at 8:02 I knew I had gone out too fast, but what do you do??! By mile 6 I had run 2 minutes faster than my last 10k and knew the rest of the race was going to hurt!!! My brain decided it didn't want to be running anymore about mile 6.5, and unfortunately the only way to quit was to cross that finish line! I kept chugging along and finally made it to mile 10. I had stayed ahead of my 1:52 goal pace the entire time and was happy about that. The course was super hilly and it was starting to wear on my legs. By mile 11 my quads were screaming and I just wanted to stop. The race was well marked and there were lots of volunteers at every turn up until mile 12....then it all fell apart. We were running on and around the ASU campus and the course markers were everywhere from several different local races. No volunteers in sight either. People were getting lost and backtracking everywhere. It was really frustrating and confusing. I just kept following the 3 people in front on me and no one knew where to go. We finally found the finish line and I was elated to see the time on the clock....1:49!! Unforunately my mileage was all screwed up from the course being wrong, so I ran a little shorter than the 13.1 miles. I hate that so much, but what do you do?? I know I would have had a time of 1:50 something if I had run farther, so I hate to claim this as my actual PR. 
Regardless, I still managed to knock 7 minutes off my previous PR, so I was thrilled with that!! Finish time was 1:49:36 with an average pace of 8:22. It was good enough to get me into the top awards too:) I was the 4th overall female finisher and won $75!! My first prize money for a race:) The best part of the race was that my running partner finished 1st female overall!!! I am so proud of her and her amazing race and time. And super thankful I did not try to hang on with her from the beginning!! It was a fun day, but a tough race. My legs are killing me today too, so I guess I will take it easy for a few days to rest.
Me and Amber after the race. #1 and #4 female finishers:) All those 5am runs paid off!
My sweet little guys spectating the race. 
posted by Lauren at
8:08 PM
3 Comments:
Great job!! I wanted to run this one but it was my daughter's bday Saturday and it just wasn't going to work out. That is crazy that it got so confusing at the end... At least you won some $$$!!! :-)
Even a tad short, fantastic effort for just three week post HIM! Way to go!!!
Thanks Tia!! Hopefully you can run it next year and they will have the course properly marked:) Hope you enjoyed all your family birthday festivities!
And thanks TPG!! I was really surprised my body responded to the speed that close to the HIM too...maybe it was all the resting and not running I did in between the 2 races:)
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