Well….. my first ever half marathon is in the books.

I woke up at 4AM after not sleeping at all. I was too excited to sleep. Of course it was cold and raining when I got up, but at least no snow. Got dressed and caffeinated and hit the road at 530AM. Parking wasn’t an issue. I only got to run a single warm up mile.

Since I was born and raised in Bham, I saw a million people I knew. It was great. People from high school, college, and everyone in between. Blast off was a little before 7AM. Rain stopped, but the wind was awful. Regardless of the conditions, I’m gonna have to stop wearing a shirt. I always seem to take it off about mile three.

I had a plan: ramp HR up to about 180 and keep it there and adjust accordingly. This was perfect for me and made the race so much easier. The hills were the only thing that impacted my pace. Mile 2 was 8:17. Mile 13 was 8:10. My overall time was 1:47ish. Not sure what the overall finish and ranking is. I felt comfortable that a sub 2:00 was doable. I felt 1:45 was reasonable and 1:30 was possible. I left some time on the table, but was very pleased for almost 50 yrs old.

This was the last year of this race. Happy to be a part of it and sorry to have just now gotten into running.

ETA: 500’ of climb and 10-20 mph wind gusts.
EETA: Results finally posted. Top 20% of my age group and top 15% overall. 8:18 pace. Need to be in the 8 flat pace.

This post was edited on 2/12/23 at 8:25 pm

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Posted by mmill32

Williamson County, Texas

Member since Jul 2005

2994 posts

Posted on 2/12/23 at 3:45 pm to Aubie Spr96

Ran the San Antonio Rodeo Run 5K last Saturday and Scally Wampus 10K in San Marcos last Sunday.

Forgot 5K time, but was right at 26 min. 10k was 53:26, which was a 8:36 pace and good for 4th in my age group of 35 - 39. The girlfriend looked it up and said I would have placed if run a 8:27 pace. Something to shoot for during training.

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Posted by BaddestAndvari

That Overweight Racist State

Member since Mar 2011

18313 posts

Posted on 2/16/23 at 7:51 am to Aubie Spr96

quote:
My overall time was 1:47ish

Beat Lyda, all that matters

**his time last year, he only did the Half this year

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So yesterday was cadence / speed work... I hate speed work, I can go out and run at a 9:00 pace for 13+ miles but the second I start running sub-8:00 my body just wants me to quit instantly. Gotta keep working on it, ended up with a PR on 1 Mile & 5K yesterday afternoon.

That means all of my PRs are from 2023 (400m, 1k, 1 mile, 2 mile, 5k, 10k, & Half Marathon; still haven't done a Marathon, that will be in late April) - not bad for having an 8 month old that had to have Open Heart Surgery at 5 Months