Greater Danbury Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

Ok, I knew I was underprepared for this race. Mainly, it was the lack of long runs, by the ones I'd done, I knew that stiffness and the inability of my legs to do what I wanted them to do.

So, the first 5 miles were fine, then a bit of stiffness and tiredness coincided with the beginning of the tougher uphills. I got slower. Then, at 8.5-ish, what I had been DREADING came - a mile+ long generally uphill portion. It was brutal. It completely deflated me and sucked all the will out of my legs. I got slower, and slower. It sucked.

At mile 10, there was a downhill. But it was so steep (but short, thank GOODNESS), that I thought I might tumble down the hill, and the pounding made my left knee really frickin pissed off. The pain was seriously acute. WTF, all these long inclines and a useless and pain inducing downhill? No FAIR!!

By this point, I had pretty much lost the will to live. By bashing my knee on that downhill, there were several other downhills that were much more forgiving that I could easily negotiate when I haven't pissed off my knee, but caused pain and made me walk in my then-current condition. Then I was even more pissed. What, a downhill I can't use to my advantage because that OTHER useless downhill caused my knee to be like, WTF? SUCK!!

But, I persevered. I even managed to pretty much "run" the last two miles without stopping! That was just sheer will. But the last 3 were just horrible because I was soooo tired, my legs were hardly moving and I was getting passed by people, and it was fairly demoralizing. But, I would just tell myself, "lead with your sternum and pick up your heels" and I could go at a clip that was much faster than walking, so by that point, that was a win!!

It's so weird because I could still sort of sprint the last 100 yards. I thought that meant I had more gas for before, but Tom says he can do that too - be totally unable to go faster EXCEPT at the last 100 yards, he thinks maybe it's different fibers or something. Anyway, this is the kick in the pants I needed to be serious about training.

Oh yeah, the crazy thing is I did like the first 10 miles at HR 176-180, which is STUPID high, even in the very beginning I was at 176. Crazy. But by the end, my legs were so dead that I was at like HR 164 - but I COULD NOT GO FASTER. My heart was like, "ok" but my legs were like, "hellz no beotch!" It was kinda crazy, I never realized that my heart could go so much longer than the legs, but I guess it's true. Heh. Anyway, enough about that! :)

I'm not sure I could have done much differently here except not try to run down the downhill of death. I was so underprepared that this was probably the best I could do. MAYBE i should have been slower the first 5 miles, which I did at 10:10, so I would have more at the end? I don't know. Or maybe I shoudl ahve tried a run-walk.

Mainly, train better and more.

Just some stretching followed by a BIG GREASY BURGER, FRIES, and my favorite beer, Smithwicks! :)


1) Not enough long runs, nor were my runs long enough.
2) I need to do more long tempo runs to practice running FAST semi-long.
3) HILLS HILLS HILLS. I need to do more HILLS so I can scoff at stupid hills and smoke 'em! OR - I joked to Tom today that I'll never do another race that's not advertised as "flat and fast" ;).


It's hard to tell really how good this race was because I wasn't around for most post-race activities - I was still running!! But there were 6 drink stations, which I found to be plenty, Gu at mile 8, and Gu20 at all but the first, water at all, obviously. They also had a band along the way, which I enjoyed. I sort of blame them for this portion where I ran too fast and probably depleted my abilities for the 2nd half of the race :).

One nice thing was that they had some showers and a large locker room if you wanted for after the race. I could have had it all to myself since I was like, 522nd place out of 537, but I didn't shower there. But the facility was pretty nice - though it was kinda strange, they had NO bathrooms along the route. Which is fine for ME personally, I never go during a race (lucky me!), but for people who tend to have GI problems maybe this isn't your race.

I probably won't do this race again because it was so darn hilly and the field is pretty fast, it seems, but maybe this time next year I'll be able to do it, eh? :)