2011 Fargo Half Marathon
Fargo Half Marathon
This past Saturday I competed in my third Fargo Half Marathon. I was trying to break 2 hours this year, but fell short by about 5 minutes. A combination of lax training and crazy humid weather did me in.
When we were down in Arizona back in April I found it hard to get my runs in. No matter what time of the morning I woke up, it was already too damn warm. I'd gone from running in -15°C weather to +15°C weather in the span of a day. Not something my body was ready for. So I slacked out on my runs.
Unfortunately I kept slacking when I got home. I went from running 2 to 4 times a week, to maybe once a week. I didn't get in any speed work, nor did I do some of my longer runs. If you look at the Garmin data from my Fargo race, it really shows. My pace was great up until the 1:30 mark and that's where it all fell apart.
I had a pace range between a 4:45 km and a 5:24 km, and I did manage to stick close to 5:20. That would have gotten me in just shy of 2 hours. But because I didn't train like I should have and wasn't able to maintain a faster pace it all fell apart at 1:30 :(
The weather didn't help either. When I woke up there was a 80% chance of thunderstorms happening during the run, so the air was humid, hot, and thick. Unfortunately for me, the thunderstorms never happened so the entire race was super humid and not something I was used to running in. Towards the end I almost took my shirt off (and I never take my shirt off 'cause I was overheating so damn much.
But I still have a chance to break 2 hours this year. There's the Imagine Run out in Niverville this fall, and Terry's been talking about running the Las Vegas Marathon in December. I know that I need to get my ass in gear (and in shape!) and stick to the schedule when I'm training.
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