back to the half marathon
Today I did my last run before the Steamworks Half Marathon, which will be my seventh time running this race. (I have a standard pre-half-marathon workout of about four miles: two easy warm-up, one easy with strides, half a mile at goal pace, and then easy the rest of the way home.) The weather is expected to be sunny and hot, as it has been every year, which is not my favorite racing weather but that's what you get when you race in June in Colorado.
This will be my first half marathon since I did the same race two years ago. I had high hopes for that race that were dashed for a variety of reasons; this year, I'm scaling back my expectations, and it's possible that even my modest hopes may yet be too ambitious. My A goal is to beat my 1:47:21 from that race; my B goal is to come in faster than 1:50, and my C goal is to come in under 2 hours. I am also sort of hoping to win my age group, but that's not really much of a goal as typically this race doesn't attract a lot of fast old ladies, and I've won most years despite the 10-year age groupings this race uses.
Last year I started out fast, with an ambitious 1:43 goal (which would require an average pace faster than 8 minute miles), but after three miles my pace went north of that mark and never got back down. I hope to not make that mistake again this year. My training mileage has been lower than it was that year (about 31mpw vs 38 mpw), but my overall weekly workout time is about the same (8 hours/week) due to more mountain biking and more trail running (which is slower than road running at the same effort level, and therefore takes more time). I also felt that I suffered last year from having run a 10M race two weeks before, and then having a wonky taper of mostly mountain biking. So I'm hoping that I can maintain a steady effort comparable to the tempo runs I've done over the past few months, 8:05-8:15 pace, and not blow up. Cross your fingers for me!
Originally posted on my primary journal at https://ilanarama.dreamwidth.org/172961.html; please comment there. OpenID and anonymous comments are welcome.
This will be my first half marathon since I did the same race two years ago. I had high hopes for that race that were dashed for a variety of reasons; this year, I'm scaling back my expectations, and it's possible that even my modest hopes may yet be too ambitious. My A goal is to beat my 1:47:21 from that race; my B goal is to come in faster than 1:50, and my C goal is to come in under 2 hours. I am also sort of hoping to win my age group, but that's not really much of a goal as typically this race doesn't attract a lot of fast old ladies, and I've won most years despite the 10-year age groupings this race uses.
Last year I started out fast, with an ambitious 1:43 goal (which would require an average pace faster than 8 minute miles), but after three miles my pace went north of that mark and never got back down. I hope to not make that mistake again this year. My training mileage has been lower than it was that year (about 31mpw vs 38 mpw), but my overall weekly workout time is about the same (8 hours/week) due to more mountain biking and more trail running (which is slower than road running at the same effort level, and therefore takes more time). I also felt that I suffered last year from having run a 10M race two weeks before, and then having a wonky taper of mostly mountain biking. So I'm hoping that I can maintain a steady effort comparable to the tempo runs I've done over the past few months, 8:05-8:15 pace, and not blow up. Cross your fingers for me!
Originally posted on my primary journal at https://ilanarama.dreamwidth.org/172961.html; please comment there. OpenID and anonymous comments are welcome.