I finished the race almost 13 minutes faster than I did last year. Other than the time improvement, the race went the same as last year. I felt smooth and relatively comfortable with the first few miles of the race, I didn’t feel like I was going very fast. My time for the first 3 and first 6 miles was faster than I thought it would be. And, like last year, I bonked after the ten mile mark. Actually, it started around the 8 mile mark – I felt a muscle spasm in my arm, made a point of trying to relax once that happened.
Once I hit the steep pitch less than a mile from summit, I had to walk a little bit – my calves were screaming. And then it hit me again just past the 10 mile mark, had to walk since I could feel my calves seizing up. That is a horrible feeling when you feel like your legs are going to buckle. I had to make an effort to land and “roll” to stretch out my calves with each stride. When I was running across the washboards in the road, I mistakenly landed on the backside of a washboard and didn’t get a chance to roll my stride. Oh boy, that hurt.
Final time was 1:51:24, here’s a breakdown of my split times along with a comparison of the training run to the summit (8.5 miles) that I did about a 6 weeks ago.
Race Training
3 miles 23:10
cattle guard 42:06 44:30 (2:24)
7 miles 1:00:28
summit 1:17:05 1:18:36 (1:29)
9 miles 1:22:00
10 miles 1:28:56
11 miles 1:36:28
12 miles 1:44:30
13.1 miles 1:51:24
I ran the last three miles in 6:56 (10th mile), 7:32, 8:02, and 6:16. There is no way I ran the last mile in 6:16. I did some walking twice after mile marker 10, I guarantee that I wasn’t feeling energetic after the 12th mile to put in a 6:16 mile – if anything I was running at a 8:16 pace or slower. Last year I noticed the same thing, the last mile seemed short. Overall, I am pleased with my results.
[tags]robie creek, half marathon[/tags]
