Monster Dash - RunHalf Marathon

I put myself right in front of the 2:05 pace group. I was good with that as a result, but I figured it would be easier to let them sweep me up than having to pass them later, just in case I was feeling good.

Around mile 1.5ish, my friend said she was going to drop back a little. At this time I was running well and managed to get slightly ahead of the pace group. I could hear them behind me, though, and it was always very close. Right before mile 3 the course starts to take a really nice downhill angle, just enough to feel really strong. I enjoyed this until about mile 5. Here the road is a bit flatter with small undulations. My friend caught back up with me and we ended up right behind the 2:05 pacer. Well, ok, running with them was fine. I started to feel like we were running too fast, though, and realized he was pushing the pace down to the 9:20 area. Even though I was running behind him, my overall average pace was 9:22.

Around mile 8 I was starting to feel crappy. I was breathing harder and generally feeling the fatigue. It was WAY too early to be feeling that! I was bummed because the first 5-6 miles felt effortless. Around mile 9 I could tell my friend was looking really good and I was not, so I encouraged her to run her own pace and not worry about me. Almost immediately I started to fall back. I did hit mile 10 around 1:34, which is a 10 mile PR for me. My splits are a bit confusing at this point because my Garmin and the flags were always off, so I was hitting the lap button the mile. Yes, yes, I should have just turned off the autolap and done it manually.

There was a long sunny stretch after mile 10 that included a HUGE hill. That was unexpected. In the grand scheme of a 13.1 elevation map it hadn't stood out and this was the only part of the course I had never run before. My pace slowed over a 10 min/mile and then I also walked a bit. My average for this mile was around 11. Once I got over the hill I decided I needed to just go on auto pilot and get it done. The road was quite slanted and I was really spent, so it was a painful 3.1 in general. I averaged 9:49 for mile 12 and 10:06 for mile 13, which is better than I was worried about I guess. That was probably the most painful half marathon I've done and I was surprised at my ability to push myself despite of that.

I definitely suffered from the way scaled back training in October due to a slow recovery from the 10 miler, being sick and missing TWO long runs, and also just being sick. I missed almost a week of work, so it was a tough illness. I also struggled to breathe after the race and coughed for about an hour, so my lungs were apparently not up to the task on this cold day. Considering all of that, I think I did pretty good!

This was probably the best Team Ortho race I have participated in. Pretty well run considering the size of the crowd and no real complaints. I think there was a water stop missing in the final miles... The race jacket give to us is super awesome.