2012 is off to much the same start as 2011, so I decided it would be fitting to have my first post of the year (a year with hopefully more regular posting) be the ING Half marathon race report
A year ago the ING half was my first half marathon and the first time I'd ever raced over a 10k. A year later it's my 4th half (though really only my second fast competitive one) and I have a full under my belt. A year ago a strained achillies kept me from running for several weeks before the race, this year a foot stress fracture kept me out in december and a knee issue slowed me up for several weeks before the race.
I was signed up for the full marathon this year, but after being slowed up in December and January there was no way I could have run it, so I decided several weeks before the race that I would be running the half. At the expo however they told me if I switched to the half there was a good chance I wouldn't be getting a medal or an official time - so I ran under my buddy's bibe number after he decided he wasn't even going to run the half. Unfortunately this meant I was starting from the E coral rather than the C coral. It didn't seem like a big deal to me at the time, but ultimately it lead me to treat this race as a long MP run rather than full out race.
Starting from closer to the back put a lot more slow people in front of me - and I'm sure many people who shouldn't have even been up there... My first mile was painfully slow 7:10 as I walk-ran as fast as I could constantly dodging around people and weaving from one side of the street to the other. After 2 more miles of 6:40 pace dodging walkers I bagged any idea of racing and tried to settle into 6:40-6:50 pace.
Overall the race was relatively uneventful so I won't put down the details. The 6:48 pace I averaged for the race felt hard, but on the plus side, even with limited training, didn't feel all our or as hard as it did last year. (Granted I ran 5 min faster last year but I was healthier and the weather was quite a bit warmer this year.) Also, my garmin read a full quarter mile further than race distance - lots of weaving from one side of the road to the other!
The goal now is to get fully healthy and get some good 5 & 10k races in this spring before settling in for another marathon training season.
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