It seems so long ago now, but the New Year started with the hopes of keeping my streak intact. It wasn’t really a New Year’s Resolution, but January is a great time to focus on goals. Three months later, the streak has not been broken, yet some of the focus has been weakened. Here are the stories of the last 3 episodes of the Half-Marathon a Month Club.
January’s race was back to my hometown in Phoenix. This was the 2nd year of the Arizona Rock ‘N Roll Half Marathon. This is one of my favorite races anywhere because it starts in front of my dad’s old office in downtown Phoenix, and ends at my alma mater Arizona State next to the Football Stadium. Plus, it is a great opportunity to visit the family back home.
We arrived at the buses earlier this year because we had to wait 45 minutes to get on the bus last year. We made it to the start with plenty of time, but then the lines for the port-o-johns were worse. One thing to note, never get in the line behind a guy carrying his own toilet paper!! True story, I think I was 4 people from the front for 20 minutes!! Doug started next to me, and I had moved 1 spot by the time it was my turn.
They changed the course this year. More time was spent in downtown Phoenix on Central Ave. with larger crowds. They removed a loop that had no crowds, no bands, and no aid stations at mile 10-12 from last year. I really enjoyed this race because of all the bands, I ran into some people I knew from when I used to live in Phoenix, and the weather was perfect. It had been raining in California for 2 weeks before we went out there, and there were no clouds the entire weekend. Perfect weather. Doug and I ran at a steady comfortable pace, took in the atmosphere and just had a good time. I definitely recommend this race to anyone looking for a nice get-away race weekend.
The February race was the traditional Super Bowl Sunday Huntington Beach ½ Marathon. I set a PR at this course last year. So I geared up for this to be the race to break my goal of 2 hours this year. The first 5 miles of this race are a straight jog north on PCH. It is an easy start to get in rhythm, make sure my miles splits are correct, and just keep going. I was on a perfect pace for the first 5 miles, hitting 9 minutes at each mile marker. As we approached the turn-around point, I started to hear groans from the runners who had turned around. I couldn’t figure out what it was until I turned around. All of a sudden we were running directly INTO the wind.
No wonder the first 5 miles had been so good!! Things felt great, but nothing can be easy. I dug for a little energy, and responded fairly well because I still felt great at mile 7 when we turned into the local neighborhood and went up the only small hill on the course. I still felt good at mile 9 when I noticed I was at 80 minutes and STILL right on pace for breaking 2 hours. I kept cruising through the neighborhood section until I hit mile 10 and it was the turn back onto PCH for the last 3 miles. All of a sudden that wind hit me again, and my legs cramped up. Those wonderful 9 minute miles turned into 11 minute miles, and the dream of a 2 hour Half Marathon would have to wait for another day.
An additional story I will take from this marathon was Doug’s adventure. He got to the starting line late thinking the race was at 7:30 instead of 7:00. As he walked to the starting tent he wondered why it wasn’t very crowded. The he saw that the clock was about 20 minutes into the race. Luckily for chip timing, he could still race and come with a reasonable time. So off he went, passing the old ladies and people pushing baby strollers. When we finally caught up after the race and he told me what happened we compared times. In the end his time of 2:03:37 was only 7 SECONDS behind me!!
The March race was the only of this set of races that I had never done before. It was the Agoura Hills Half Marathon and it publicized itself saying it had the best post race party in L.A. County. Fair enough, since we couldn’t find anything closer to home at least we could stay in LA County. After a night of watching the first round of the NCAA tournament (I just HAD to stay up and watch Bucknell beat Kansas) I woke at 4:30 to drive to Agoura Hills. OUCH, that’s EARLY.
I never felt on top of my form in this race. The first 3 miles I was barely making my normal 9-minute per mile split, and then came mile 4. This was the earliest I think I’ve felt bad in a race before. This particular mile had 7, yes I counted them 7, HAIRPIN turns. That means everyone had to stop, avoid hitting the people around him or her, turn around and go the other way. PLUS, there was a quarter mile uphill stretch in the middle of this. My split for this was 10:30, at mile 4!!! I was mad.
I kept going though, even though I had to stop and kick pebbles out of my shoe at mile 7. I knew I had no chance for this to be the 2-hour race, but still, I expected to be around 2:05. Then we came to mile 9. This was a 0.4 mile muddy climb 500 feet up. Not fun for a training run. It was totally unfair on race day. Safe to say, I expect nobody ran a PR on this course. Congrats to Doug who had a great race and beat my by at least 5 minutes.
I just tried to keep from getting injured, however, I seemed to have developed a case of plantar fasciitis. I have all the symptoms of it, and the remedies listed in the article found at the following web site have helped.
http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/987116429.html
I’m halfway to my goal of one half marathon a month for a year. Of course, there have been ups and downs already. I’m still trying to figure out the optimal amount of time to take off between races. I tend to take to much time and not be ready for the next race. Life is a learning process, and I have already felt lots of personal reward by sticking with it this long. The next 3 races on the schedule are in La Jolla, Palos Verdes, and Fontana.