Mentally, I'd been planning on running this race for a while. It's nice and flat and usually has good weather (Also it's a PA race, so I'll get reimbursed for it.) And it was one of the first half marathons I ran when I started racing again in the Bay Area, so there's also some nostalgia there. 🥰 (Related, let me point out that in 2011 I ran this race for $45. This year it was $70. Gotta love inflation. 🤣)
Back when my knee was all messed up, I didn't know if it would happen, but once I got through the 12K in September with no issues, I felt pretty confident I could at least get into *plausible* half marathon shape (by which I mean, able to finish the distance at faster than a jog). At no point was I ever audacious enough to think it would be even remotely fast. But as I've been ever so gradually working my way back into shape, I've been trying to cultivate an attitude of not getting too precious about race times, and taking the opportunity to race less to see how fast I can run and more to practice running by feel and effort (though of course seeing how fast you can run x distance at y point in time is useful information as well).
When I was more consistently at a certain level of fitness, I raced all the time by trying to hit a certain goal pace, mile after mile, even if it felt too hard, and often, that worked. But when your fitness is kind of all over the place (except for high 😆), that approach just really does not work at all. So as I've been coming back from this knee injury, I have really let myself throw pace entirely out the window and just run by feel. (Like. Darling, you have run something like thirty half marathons in your life, *surely* you know what the right effort level feels like, regardless of your fitness? If not by now then when??)
And then what happened?
Haha well first I remembered to *actually* sign up for it lol. Thankfully nothing too dramatic happened between getting back from vacation and the race; just a moderate amount of running, gradually increasing mileage, sneaking in fairly short & conservative workouts here & there, & supplementing with elliptical, spin bike, & swimming in order to get some additional volume in without the impact. As of Saturday afternoon my body felt good and all of my various little bodily niggles seemed to be behaving themselves.
Race Day:
The half marathon had an 8:30am start, so one can *plausibly* drive up from SF on race morning, if you're cool with leaving at say 5:30 in the morning and sufficiently prostrating yourself before the traffic gods. But as I am far too anxious and far far too much NOT a morning person, I booked myself a little hotel room ~20 minutes from the start and went up Saturday night. The drive was easy and though I struggled to go to sleep, I at least got to sleep in until 6:00am and get parked at the race by 7:00am.
It is possible to park close to the start/finish if you get there early, and I probably could have, but I didn't really know where I was going and rather than drive around hoping I'd find a spot, I elected to just park at the official parking about a mile away (since there is a nice warm bus to drive you the ~3 minute trip).
Though it was a bit chilly when I arrived, it was clearly going to be a *beautiful* race day, with temps between 58-62F, partly cloudy, and basically no wind to speak of.
Not long after the 30K went off at 8:00am, I found a bunch of my teammates and went off for a brief warm up, during which I felt pretty good. I was hoping to run 15 total for the day, so just jogged one easy mile beforehand and figured I would do the last .9 as a cool down. After my easy mile I really though I had time to pee one last time but nope! Literally right as I was walking up to the start line and trying to figure out the best place to situate myself, I heard the gun, and eek! We were off!
NOW. I want to preface this whole section by saying, overall I think this race went pretty well for me! There are a lot of positives. So many positives! I just want to say that now because, during a race, my brain more often than not turns into a curmudgeon. I know that about myself. It's just who I am. So while it may seem like a lot of moaning and groaning while I was running, please just know that there were a lot of positives! Totally, 100% aware of that, and we will get to them.
So. For the first couple of miles I just tried to settle in and figure out (totally by feel, I didn't even have time or pace up on my watch) what kind of effort felt right for 13.1 miles. And pretty quickly I reached a pace that, while it felt pretty shuffle-y, seemed about right. Like, I'd check in with my body like, "Really? This is it? Can't pick it up juuuust a touch," and my body would be like "Man, fuck you. We have like five weeks of prettttty limited training, here. This is what you get."
"Not even just a little faster?"
"Uhhhhh do you want to finish not in a death march kind of situation? Then yes. Get comfortable and shut the hell up."
But I never could really get comfortable. Like, I was comfortable from the perspective of "Yes, I can do this for 13+ miles," but also, I just felt kind of bad. Just fatigued, and sleepy, and sort of detached from my legs. My first four miles were 8:19, 8:38, 8:34, and 8:41, and while I'd really done my best to go into this race knowing I wasn't super fit and expecting to run pretty slow, it became clear that a part of me was still like, "Okay but I really didn't think it was going to be THIS slow." On the one hand, it didn't feel like I was working hard enough for a half marathon race, but on the other hand, I didn't feel like it was possible to run even one iota faster without blowing up later.
So, yeah. For the middle part of the race, I didn't feel very good, but held the pace pretty steady (8:39, 8:27, 8:36, 8:37). I usually do gels at miles 3, 6, and 9 in a half but was definitely getting a signal from my stomach that NOPE, definitely a bad idea, just don't even try it. But honestly I probably wasn't running fast enough for it to even matter. My mental attitude (which I have been trying to work on this year) was better than usual, though I still found myself getting irrationally annoyed at people around me. Ahem:
A BRIEF SELECTION OF WHO IS ANNOYING ME AND HOW:
- The woman behind me on an out-and-back section losing her damn mind every time a runner from [team] passed in the other direction. And she wasn't even on their team! Just kept going absolutely apeshit any time one of them would pass. Like. Lady, how are you doing that, I can barely manage a little nod/wave any time I see one of my actual teammates who I am actually on a team with.
- The three people who ran about 20 feet in front of me in matching green singlets for like five miles. Don't ask me why this was so infuriating. I can't explain it. But it was pissing me right tf off. Look at those jerks, just wearing those GREEN SINGLETS like they own the place. Hmph.
- Volunteers/spectators yelling things like "RUNNNNN!!!" and "GOOOOOO!!" Like. ?? We're all already doing that. Can you not see us all already doing that?? And if someone isn't for a minute, they probably have a good reason so leave them alone??? Also I would formally like to petition for the removal of the phrase "You got this!" from the English language. It's absolute peak cringe at this point. Just let it ride off into the sunset and die.
- While we're at it, "JUST A 5K LEFT!" I'm sorry but have you ever actually raced a 5K? 100% *the* fucking worst, everyone knows this. Moreover, have you ever raced a 5K after you've already raced 10 miles? Because if not, close your mouth, you don't know what you're talking about. And if you have, shame on you because you should know better. No one needs to hear that there's "just" anything left until the finish line is within actual seeing distance.
- Anyone making any kind of frequent or repetitive noises that no one running an endurance race should be making. You gotta cough a little bit? No biggie. But to the dude running right around my pace making super loud groaning/moaning noises of agony every 20-30 seconds from approximately miles 4-8?
OK enough ranting.
Around mile 8-9ish I started getting some bad stomach cramps. Not bad enough to stop and it doesn't seem as if they slowed me down any, but I certainly wasn't speeding up. I'm actually kind of proud of the fact that I didn't fall apart mentally and just kind of went, well, sigh, I guess this is happening.
As I reached miles 9-10-11ish, I found myself thinking, "Hey maybe I can pick it up a bit now!" But my body still had quite a firm hold on the reins; absolutely no speeding up would be tolerated. But hey, at least I wasn't slowing down (at least not by much)! This at least meant that my attitude was more like, "Welp this has been great but I'd really prefer to be done now" vs. "OMG how the HELL am I going to finish this, it's impossible, just let me freaking DIE already."
But still, after those last miles (8:45, 8:58, 8:42, 8:45, 8:34, + .2 @ 7:30 pace) I was still very, VERY much happy to be done running.
Official: 13.1 miles / 1:53:57 / 8:42 pace
Garmin: 13.2 miles / 1:53:54 / 8:38 pace
I promised I would get back to the positives, because this race was good in so many ways! Let us count the ways:
- I'm not injured!
- I am capable of running 15 miles in a morning right now!
- I ran pretty even splits (all between 8:19-8:45 except one) and even cranked that last .2 down to 7:30 pace!
- I didn't finish the race feeling like I wanted to beat someone up and then cry!
See, so many good things!
No, I am not happy with the time (duh), but now I at least know where I'm starting from.
What's Next?
A little 5K on Thanksgiving. I feel like if you know where you are with 13.1 and with 5K, you have a pretty good sense of your general running fitness. After that, I want to focus on Kaiser Half, which gives me I think 12 weeks (including some work travel & holiday travel that may not include a ton of running).
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