Exercise Log #400 - VA Beach Half Marathon
Went down to VA Beach this weekend to run the half marathon with my brother.
The drive down went well enough, a few traffic jams at areas where highways merged or reduced lanes, but otherwise the traffic was much lighter than I was expecting for driving to a beach town on the Saturday morning on Labor Day weekend.
Checked out the beach Saturday afternoon, decided we had seen enough of that.
I bought a pair of Croc sandals at the runner's expo $40 - no, they don't look like the typical Croc's with the goofy bubble shell toe-box -- these look like regular sandals with a cloth strip over the footloop. Comfy enough, though they rub in a spot on my toe that got cut up.
We stayed at the 'Quality Inn' on 21st, a block from the Expo and race starting point at the VA Beach Expo Center. It was cheaper than the official hotels by a worthwhile amount, but there wasn't really anything 'Quality' about the place. The location was good for the race start.
Saturday night we ate at a pricey restaurant around the corner called Zoey's. I had the iceberg salad and a 10oz steak (not the greatest idea, my gut was feeling it during the run) - nice place.
Saturday night watched some DVDs I rented from the 'Red Box' vending machine at Harris Teeter. I'm so impressed with that service. A significant selection (though they were out of the recently released 'Blades of Glory') and is rather efficient with doing a credit-card transaction and optionally sending you a receipt via email. The email was fairly prompt. Pricing is $1 per day for each DVD you vend, ending at 7pm each day. They cap it at 25 days, then you've bought the thing for $25. You can return it to any Red Box machine. So, obviously they are hoping you'll not return the thing for a few days, and they make good $ on each rental. Well done.
Anyhow, the half marathon started 7am Sunday morning. I knew I hadn't prepared well enough to run the 1:50 that I had put down on the form when I signed up a few months back - that time was pretty close to the first half of last year's MCM and also would be close to a PR.
So, I set out thinking I want to do a 8:40/mile pace and hold it as long as I can, then figure out how to finish.
I did the first 7 miles on pace, then did walk run intervals, starting with a 3 minute walk. Letting myself cool down with the walks really helped, and I was able to get back up to pace in between them.
Official Splits:
5k > 25:41
10k> 52:41
10m> 1:30:02
11m> 1:41:50
13.1> 2:01:14
My stopwatch splits:
1 > 8:13
2 > 8:13 / 16:26
3 > 8:20 / 24:46
4 > 8:34 / 33:20
5 > 8:36 / 41:56
6 > 9:04 / 51:00
7 > 9:08 / 1:00:08
8 > 10:36 / 1:10:44
9 > 10:37 / 1:21:22
10> 8:41 / 1:30:02
11> 11:47 / 1:41:50
12> 8:40 / 1:50:30
13> 9:52 / 2:00:22
Sunday afternoon I stopped by a beach house a classmate was staying at, in Sandcastle, about 25 minutes from VA Beach. Nice suburb, they were in a great house, with a nice quiet public beach.
Sunday evening drove over to Norfolk and ate at Scotty Quixx. Decent place, it's owned by a guy that we grew up with.
Drove back Monday morning, also not bad traffic-wise, just a few jams. 3:30 including a stop for lunch.
The drive down went well enough, a few traffic jams at areas where highways merged or reduced lanes, but otherwise the traffic was much lighter than I was expecting for driving to a beach town on the Saturday morning on Labor Day weekend.
Checked out the beach Saturday afternoon, decided we had seen enough of that.
I bought a pair of Croc sandals at the runner's expo $40 - no, they don't look like the typical Croc's with the goofy bubble shell toe-box -- these look like regular sandals with a cloth strip over the footloop. Comfy enough, though they rub in a spot on my toe that got cut up.
We stayed at the 'Quality Inn' on 21st, a block from the Expo and race starting point at the VA Beach Expo Center. It was cheaper than the official hotels by a worthwhile amount, but there wasn't really anything 'Quality' about the place. The location was good for the race start.
Saturday night we ate at a pricey restaurant around the corner called Zoey's. I had the iceberg salad and a 10oz steak (not the greatest idea, my gut was feeling it during the run) - nice place.
Saturday night watched some DVDs I rented from the 'Red Box' vending machine at Harris Teeter. I'm so impressed with that service. A significant selection (though they were out of the recently released 'Blades of Glory') and is rather efficient with doing a credit-card transaction and optionally sending you a receipt via email. The email was fairly prompt. Pricing is $1 per day for each DVD you vend, ending at 7pm each day. They cap it at 25 days, then you've bought the thing for $25. You can return it to any Red Box machine. So, obviously they are hoping you'll not return the thing for a few days, and they make good $ on each rental. Well done.
Anyhow, the half marathon started 7am Sunday morning. I knew I hadn't prepared well enough to run the 1:50 that I had put down on the form when I signed up a few months back - that time was pretty close to the first half of last year's MCM and also would be close to a PR.
So, I set out thinking I want to do a 8:40/mile pace and hold it as long as I can, then figure out how to finish.
I did the first 7 miles on pace, then did walk run intervals, starting with a 3 minute walk. Letting myself cool down with the walks really helped, and I was able to get back up to pace in between them.
Official Splits:
5k > 25:41
10k> 52:41
10m> 1:30:02
11m> 1:41:50
13.1> 2:01:14
My stopwatch splits:
1 > 8:13
2 > 8:13 / 16:26
3 > 8:20 / 24:46
4 > 8:34 / 33:20
5 > 8:36 / 41:56
6 > 9:04 / 51:00
7 > 9:08 / 1:00:08
8 > 10:36 / 1:10:44
9 > 10:37 / 1:21:22
10> 8:41 / 1:30:02
11> 11:47 / 1:41:50
12> 8:40 / 1:50:30
13> 9:52 / 2:00:22
Sunday afternoon I stopped by a beach house a classmate was staying at, in Sandcastle, about 25 minutes from VA Beach. Nice suburb, they were in a great house, with a nice quiet public beach.
Sunday evening drove over to Norfolk and ate at Scotty Quixx. Decent place, it's owned by a guy that we grew up with.
Drove back Monday morning, also not bad traffic-wise, just a few jams. 3:30 including a stop for lunch.