Yesterday was the big day. I have to admit I was a little nervous since I haven’t run in a 1/2 marathon race for a long time. I was at the course by 5:30am, probably a little too early for my 7:05 am start. The advantage to that is I was parked right next to the start/finish line. Prior to the race, I drank some water ( I know Cody and Lori are shocked because they are always on me about needing to drink water) and ate a package of sports beans. I was feeling fired up and ready to go. The race definitely started out well. I ran a conservative pace. The one mistake I did make is in our training Lori and I have been doing 9 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking. I was feeling so good that I changed up the interval and ran 19 minutes and walked one minute for the first hour of the race. This turned out to burn me later. I made the rookie mistake of deviating from the plan just because I felt good early on. I forgot that I was running 13.1 miles not 3.1 miles.
There were some good size hills on this course. Lori and I have done hills so that didn’t worry me so much until I got into the race a little bit and saw the monster hill with switch backs and people trudging up it like I imagine the Egyptians did when they were dragging materials up to build the pyramids and were cursing the Gods. I kept trucking along and was amazed by a couple elite 50 miler guys who went flying by me. They told me good job which I believe translates to “I hope you make it up this hill because you look like you are dying”. I continued on at a steady pace feeling the effects of not sticking to my 9-1 plan. Cody even sent me a text the night before to run a smart even pace. I ran a pretty even pace for most of it just not exactly smart. The one thing I underestimated was the water crossings. After the first one my shoes were wet but not too bad. The second one the water was deeper and my shoes were really wet and I felt a chill go through me. By the third one, I think my momentum was seriously affected. Next year I would need to practice this type of thing to get used to that instant shock of the cold water and the sloshing shoes. After that I trudged along and was glad I didn’t have a Garmin. It was nice not knowing exactly how many miles I had left so I couldn’t obsess about it. I did have to run away from one lady because she thought it was her duty to announce every .1 mile after mile ten. There is nothing like a constant reminder to make the race seem like it is going to last forever. I feel like I should have gone faster but hindsight is 20/20. I am proud that I made it and that even though I am sore I feel way better now than I ever have after any of the other 1/2 marathons I have done. I have run street ones faster but didn’t train nearly this hard. I have Lori to thank for that. Anyway enough rambling. Bear Chase is completed and even though it is not exactly the time I wanted I am glad I finished and am proud that I stuck with the training. Now onto the Denver Rock n Roll 1/2 marathon where I will stick to the plan no matter how good I feel at the beginning. Matt Going to keep plugging along.
