evergreen half marathon
general.
The Evergreen Half Marathon was a fantastic race. Great course, high energy, and well supported with hydration and nutrition every two miles. The volunteers were absolutely awesome! It will definitely be on my calendar for however long it's held. I really can't recommend it enough, great for beginners to elites, something for everyone. They also had a 5-mile option as well, for people not wanting to do a half marathon.
One thing I thought was pretty awesome was the number of women that participated in the half. The race had a total of 500 runners for the half, 320 of those runners were women, so that leaves only 180 men. It's nice to see the interest in running increasing!
Go, ladies!
Honestly, I wasn't expecting too much from this race. I was in and out of the hospital for a bacterial infection the week leading up to it, which forced me to miss around 5 days of training. Certainly not an ideal situation, but I had already registered and paid. Plus, I finally go over the worse of my infections on Wednesday and was slowly regaining my strength and feeling better.
Another difficult decision I had to make was run in my current running shoes, which had around 400 miles on them, or run in my new shoes that haven't been broken in. My old pair were giving me some foot and knee problems, due to their age I'm hoping. But, I also didn't want to risk my race on a new pair of shoes, regardless if they were the same brand, make, and model.
Ultimately I decided to run in my old shoes. Looking back, I should have used my new pair, as my every from my knee down were all kinds of messed up after the race. But what can you do, hindsight is always 20/20.
results.
Overall: 230/500
Gender (female): 113/320
Age group (female 35-39): 23/68
the run.
Goal: 02:00:00 | Actual: 02:06:21
My strategy was to keep my pace under a 10 min mile, ideally between 9 to 9:30 min mile. I was happy to see that my average overall was pretty much within that range.
I also needed to keep my TBI in mind. I already know what my limitations are, I just needed to design my strategy around them. One example, I know I wouldn't be able to run and drink at the same time, but I also needed to make sure I allowed some relief for my brain. Aid stations were every two miles, so I decided to walk at each aid station and once I finished hydrating, start running again. This also allowed for pain management in my head. As we know, working out can push a lot more blood into the brain, which is bad for me. So those short walks allowed my brain to manage the built-up pressure better.
It was a cold race, upper 50's to lower 60's, certainly not my ideal temperature. I generally train when it's hotter because the majority of my races are in the middle of summer. The weather did play a role in my performance, as well as my stride. I was constantly fighting my muscles from tightening up. But you do what you can do, with what you got.
I went too hard at the start, which is common. Your adrenaline is pumping, the excitement and energy building. You can try your best to calm yourself, but let's be honest, you're always going to go hard at the start. Around mile 5 I was able to settle down and get into my box.
It was miles 8, 11 to 13 that killed my overall time. I started slipping out of my box, as well as letting myself walk in between aid stations. I know one of my big weaknesses is thinking I need to walk or stop when in reality I don't. For some reason, my brain goes into, "Must protect you" mode". Still something I'm trying to overcome.
Overall, my strategy worked perfectly, despite the issues in the last few miles. I'm really happy with my performance and time. I only wish I was a bit more competitive in the standings, but there was a lot of fast people in that field and it's totally okay. As long as I'm happy with how I did, that's all that matters.
This run wasn't a PR when including training, but it was definitely as race PR and that's awesome!
photos.
takeaways.
Don't go hard at the start.
Don't use running shoes that already have ~400 miles on them.
Work on Continuing to push at the tail end of races.
Figure out what caused such extreme tightness in my muscles in the days after the race and do whatever I need to make sure it doesn't happen again.