Friday and Half-Marathon Saturday, 10/31-11/1

Friday

7.5 mi / 7:00 pace on the dot. Pretty similar loop to yesterday. Kept everything fairly easy. Tired from the work week, though. With a HM tomorrow I spent extra time stretching and trying to massage out some knots that have developed over weeks... months... years? Ouch!

Saturday - race day

15 mi with 13.19 in 75:19 / 5:43 pace. When I registered for the Cochecho Challnege 1/2 marathon, it was 7 days from race time and the weather forecast looked just about perfect. By the next day the forecast shifted dramatically and it was a wait-and-see kind of week, as it was not a question of whether it would be 40 degrees and raining, but when.

So it ended up being cold, windy (15 mph steady winds) and a little rainy. I met up with Tim and Joe briefly at Adele's, a coffee shop very close to race start, and hung out for a bit. I got in a very abbreviated warm-up of maybe 1 mile... I usually prefer upwards of 3 miles warm-up but at longer races there is probably a diminishing-returns effect to consider.

The race went out a little choppy. The starting gun clicked but didn't fire, the timer started but the runners didn't, and Announcer Andy shouted "go, go, go", so we went.

I was in the lead by the mile with a 5:30. After that I relaxed into a 540-5:45 intended pace. There were some really windy sections which were noticeable but not overwhelming and some really nice sections when the wind let up. A couple good hills in the middle-to-later miles were of note but nothing crazy.

Over the last 3 miles I was in rough shape. For some reason my stomach became a wreck and I was really struggling to fully inhale, so even though the course was gentle at this point I had a hard time using the flat-to-downhill to my advantage.

Wrapped it up, watched Tim finish second with Nate Huppe in third and Keely in first for women. Immediately changed into wonderfully dry and warm clothes, hung out and ate while waiting for awards (there was an incredibly nice selection for food), and took off soon after to watch the Gordon College men's and women's teams at their conference championships!