Race report
Ran my second half-marathon this morning! The same race I did last year, actually.
Last year's time was about 2:34, so my goal was to run it in 2:30 or less. (Spoiler: I succeeded.)
Unlike last year, it didn't snow today, so there was that. I also trained much more consistently for this one, so that helped.
The Horsetooth Half-Marathon starts with a couple of enormous hills, including one with a 9% grade which looks like it may as well be 45 degrees when you are running up it. But I already figured I'd be walking them. I made up some time on the downhills, though, flying recklessly by more conservative runners.
By mile 5, I realized that RunKeeper was lying to me, trying to convince me that was faster than I actually was. At the end, it told me 13.4 miles, even though I started it a bit late. Still, it let me know I was doing better than 11 min/mile, at times even as fast as 10, which surprised me.
The husband & kids said hi to me at around mile 8, where they had been drafted into helping with the water station. That was a nice little pick-me-up. :)
Around mile 10, I started flagging, so every mile or so I slowed to a walk while I sipped some water and munched on an energy chew. This is the part where all the sayings about running being mostly mental really kicked in. I had picked out a bunch of songs for the later part of the race that I found motivating, and that helped too.
Clock time was 2:22:18, according to my husband. I was concentrating on not falling over or dropping my souvenir pint glass at the time. Chip time is probably less, but I haven't seen results posted yet. (ETA: Holy moly, my official time was 2:18:26!) I didn't stay for free beer, though, because the line was long and I had to go home and get ready to catch my flight to Washington. (That last bit is all NASA's fault. I'd already signed up for the race when they told me I had to come!)
I still have no ambitions to run a full marathon. I find halfs to be challenging enough as it is, thankyouverymuch. So my next challenge will have to be beating today's time somehow, which I can't see happening until I start reliably running 10 minutes miles or faster.
Last year's time was about 2:34, so my goal was to run it in 2:30 or less. (Spoiler: I succeeded.)
Unlike last year, it didn't snow today, so there was that. I also trained much more consistently for this one, so that helped.
The Horsetooth Half-Marathon starts with a couple of enormous hills, including one with a 9% grade which looks like it may as well be 45 degrees when you are running up it. But I already figured I'd be walking them. I made up some time on the downhills, though, flying recklessly by more conservative runners.
By mile 5, I realized that RunKeeper was lying to me, trying to convince me that was faster than I actually was. At the end, it told me 13.4 miles, even though I started it a bit late. Still, it let me know I was doing better than 11 min/mile, at times even as fast as 10, which surprised me.
The husband & kids said hi to me at around mile 8, where they had been drafted into helping with the water station. That was a nice little pick-me-up. :)
Around mile 10, I started flagging, so every mile or so I slowed to a walk while I sipped some water and munched on an energy chew. This is the part where all the sayings about running being mostly mental really kicked in. I had picked out a bunch of songs for the later part of the race that I found motivating, and that helped too.
Clock time was 2:22:18, according to my husband. I was concentrating on not falling over or dropping my souvenir pint glass at the time. Chip time is probably less, but I haven't seen results posted yet. (ETA: Holy moly, my official time was 2:18:26!) I didn't stay for free beer, though, because the line was long and I had to go home and get ready to catch my flight to Washington. (That last bit is all NASA's fault. I'd already signed up for the race when they told me I had to come!)
I still have no ambitions to run a full marathon. I find halfs to be challenging enough as it is, thankyouverymuch. So my next challenge will have to be beating today's time somehow, which I can't see happening until I start reliably running 10 minutes miles or faster.