2010 Tallahassee Half-Marathon
This is my first EN race report, I'll get the hang of it eventually 
I woke up the morning of the race after the usual pre-race not-great sleep, but my legs felt rested and (as the teenage Lance says) ready to have some fun and kick some butt! The weather was around 40 degrees, overcast with light wind, in other words perfect running weather. I put on my EN bike jersey over my long sleeve base layer to represent and drove to the start on the FSU campus. It was the first time I was racing with my new 310XT, so I was excited to finally have real-time pace and distance during a race. While I was in the crowd waiting for the start, the lady behind me read my jersey and said, "Work is speed entering the body! I love that!" It's true, I said. And then thought to myself, now I guess I'll have to prove it!
The gun went off and I started my garmin when I crossed the timing mat, and it was so crowded for the first mile I just tried to get a clear path and not lose too much time. I hit the first mile at 7:32, right on pace. I settled in for the next few miles and ran a little faster than my goal pace because my legs felt like they wanted to go faster! The course is dead flat and mostly along a converted rails-to-trails, so a lot of it was on a big paved path away from traffic. I could just cruise at my goal pace and check my garmin to keep me on pace. At the turnaround I said time to negative-split this bad boy and picked up the pace. My pace started coming down to 7 minutes, and settled around 6:50. At about 5k to go my legs started to cramp up a bit, but I didn't listen to them and just cranked it home. I crossed the line at 1:33:35, doing my best to flash the EN gang sign (but not really succeeding). After the race my legs were kiling me, but my brother said that means I worked it! And I did. I just missed the podium in my age group, but I'm really happy with where my fitness is this time of the year. All in all, a great race, and I have a new half-marathon PR to prove that work works! Here's a pic of me right before the turnaround, and my finish video here.
Comments
Crushing it while looking relaxed, and like anything else you need to practice the Gang Sign while training.