Half-Marathon Day!

I made it! I had a really good run (for a non-runner!), and I managed to break 2 hours with a really hard effort. My finish time was 1:58:55. I followed my plan of chasing the 2 hour pacer on the way out. If you're not familiar, a pacer is a runner who tries to hit a specific time at a constant pace. It turns out the 2 hour pacer was just a bit faster than pace, but I managed to stay up with her until the half-way mark. I was right at 59:00 at the half-way mark, a minute faster than the 2 hour pace. That was the slight uphill portion, so the second half was slightly down-hill. The pace was pretty hard for me, as I expected. My heart rate was averaging about 162 BPM on the way out. On the way back, I just wanted to watch my time, and see if I could hang on to break the 2 hour mark. I started getting pretty tired about the 9 mile mark, but I kept a close watch on my pace, and I only fell off slightly. The downhill helped quite a bit, and I was on very familiar territory, as the last 4 miles was on the trail near Colorado College, my normal training path. It also helped that nearby runners were keeping a consistent pace, so I just had to gut it out and keep up.

Brenda finished her marathon, just slightly off of her desired pace of 4:30. The heat got to her around the 18 mile mark, and she puked while taking some energy gel. She was staying up with the 4:30 pacer, but had to back off after the puking incident. She finished up at 4:42.

My soreness the day after the run was pretty severe. It occurs to me that a decent athlete can push himself pretty hard, even if not properly prepared. This is exactly my case. Three weeks of relatively light training is nowhere near enough preparation for this length of run.

The bottom line is, I am extremely happy with my run. I kept thinking that the worst thing would be to come in just over 2 hours. Then, I'd be tempted to run again to break that barrier. As it stands, I am now qualified for the Pikes Peak Ascent next summer. That is a huge relief, and now I am very much looking forward to that event, to experience the exhilaration again of reaching the Peak.

Next up for me is a long course Aquabike competition as part of the Harvest Moon triathlon. This will likely be my last event of the year, as fall is moving in and water temperatures are falling fast. I'll be swimming 1.2 miles and biking 56 miles, the distances of a half Ironman triathlon. The best news for me is, no run is required!