Rock 'n Roll USA (DC) Half Marathon...great race, but oh man if I only knew I needed 11 more seconds
The short version
Great half marathon in DC this morning. I ran a 1:26:10 (6:34 pace) which blows away my prior PB of 1:33:30 and gives me an all time high VDOT of 53.6. So I'm pretty psyched about that. Even more amazing is that I ran right through the finish line, wasn't doubled over and drawing "are you ok" questions from the med staff, had no muscle cramping, and my HR didn't get much over 180 the whole race. In fact I then got on the DC metro, ran up the escalator at the end of the train ride and dashed off to my hotel then to the airport to catch an hour earlier flight. So despite running the last mile in 6:21 and the last 0.12 in 6:13 pace, I probably had something left to give if I had managed my energy a little better. And missing a "1:25 something" by 11 seconds is certainly a bit frustrating…there must have been 11 seconds SOMEWHERE in that race for me!!
The Garmin record of my run is here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/284912844
The Garmin recorded 13.2 miles and a 6:32 pace.
I didn't negative split the race but I came damn close.
- Miles 1-6 were 38:48 (6:28 pace) and miles 8-13 were 39:05 (6:31 pace).
- Mile 7 included a brutal hill starting immediately after the 6 mile marker – a gain of 160 feet in a quarter mile then another ~50 feet over the next three-quarters of a mile. I ran that in 7:02 (I averaged ~8:20 up the hill which killed my 10k split – the 10k timing mat was right at the top! – but somehow managed to average down my time a lot despite the elevation gain on the rest of that mile).
- I averaged 6:41 over the course of miles 11 and 12 and that was the difference-maker in terms of not getting sub-1:26. Those miles were much more uphill than down and with a headwind, but given that I laid down a 6:21 for mile 13 (mostly downhill) and ran the stub distance at 6:13 pace (uphill) I really wonder if I couldn't have turned it up just a teeny tiny bit to get those extra 11 seconds. But it's over now and I'll never know. Bummer!
Overall it was a fast course and great weather and I'm super happy with my race. On reflection I think the sharp and brutal uphill is one of the things that makes this course so fast. You lose a bit of time going up that one part, but generally speaking you spend more time going down than up overall.
Splits:
Split......Time......Miles......Pace
1......06:35.5......1............6:34
2...... 06:28.3......1.02......6:21
3...... 06:30.8......1...........6:29
4...... 06:27.1......1.01......6:24
5...... 06:33.0 ......1..........6:32
6......06:32.4......1.01.......6:28
7......07:04.5......1.01.......7:02
8......06:34.6......1............6:33
9......06:30.5......1.01........6:26
10......06:25.3......1.01......6:23
11......06:35.1......0.99......6:38
12......06:46.2......1.01......6:44
13......06:24.0......1.01......6:21
14......0:43.3......0.12........6:13
Total 26:10.3 13.2 6:32
The long version (written on my flight home…the length of the flight will drive the length of the story…sorry!!)
This was an "A-" race for me. It was not a race for which I did specific training and I was not willing to let my tri training get derailed over this, but I have always wanted to run a sub-1:30 half marathon and so I wanted to get a good time here and was definitely treating it like a race that I cared about. My approach to the race was essentially to "train through". I did all my OS week #10 workouts this week including the 3x15' bike, the VO2 max run workout and the 60' 5MH ride that included 3x5' @110%. So I did not taper other than move all my workouts forward by one day in the week and therefore leaving both Thursday and Friday as rest days with no workouts leading up to the Saturday race. I followed the OS plan pretty much exactly as written and did not do any running "hacks" to prepare for the half marathon distance other than follow the coaches' recommendation to extend the Sunday run to 75' for the past 4 weeks. I did not do any runs longer than 75'.
My goal time for this race was sub-1:30 and I was pretty sure I could run a 6:51 pace for the race. So on Friday night I also "ran the numbers" to get a feel for if I could possibly get 1:29 or 1:28. I figured a 6:47 pace for 1:29 was possible but a 6:43 pace for 1:28 was extremely aggressive. But nonetheless I wrote on a small piece of paper the paces for those 3 times as well as the splits I would need to see on the clock at the 7 and 10 mile points to know if I was tracking to one of those times. I knew that if I was "on the borderline" at the 10 mile mark I could really turn it on to try to get that sub-1:29 or 1:28. The really key number in my mind was to see 48:00 or better at mile 7. If I didn't have that I would be screwed. And I needed 1:08:40 at the 10-mile mark. Those were the key numbers.
I had looked at the course profile on-line and had a strategy based on what to expect:
- Miles 1-5 – Mostly flat. I wanted to put some time "in the bank" at the beginning. Not recommended as a general strategy but I was willing to take the risk. Planned to take a gel at mile 5 right before the water station.
- Miles 6-7 – Uphill. My plan here was to let my pace slip a little and cut into some of my banked time from the beginning. I didn't want to lose more than a full minute here.
- Mile 8 – Mostly flat. My plan was recovery from the uphill, probably give up a bit of time. It turned out this mile was mostly downhill but uphill in the last quarter mile, and I ran it at my race average pace.
- Miles 9-10. Downhill. My plan was to gain time here and I did.
- Miles 11-12. Mostly flat. Plan was to target whatever pace was required based on seeing my mile 10 split. Turned out to be more up than down, and as mentioned above these were where I lost the sub-1:26 for sure
- Mile 13. Who cares, go hard!
I also knew the course was point-to-point with about 2 miles net west-to-east movement. The first few miles were westbound, then north (up the big hill), then east then south for the downhill, then mostly east again for the last 3 miles. The wind was ENE at 6mph so I knew the wind direction would be a net negative influence over the course of the race. My overlay to the plan based on wind was:
(a) I should "bank" even more time during the 2.5 miles westbound running at the beginning with a tailwind
(b) I should really "catch up" on the downhill with the tailwind in miles 8-10, and
(c) The last 3 miles would be a bear with the headwind
I traveled to DC on Thursday afternoon, picked up my race number and had a light dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant. Actually it was a bit more food than I intended, but I was hungry and I figured it was probably okay given 36 hours to the race. Due to a cancelled Friday morning breakfast meeting I was able to sleep in on Friday and get ~10 hours sleep. That was huge!! I had a lunch meeting on Friday at a Spanish restaurant and one of my clients wanted to share a gigantic paella to that fit the carbohydrate profile pretty well. I committed to myself to only eat half of what I was served but was unsuccessful and ate the whole thing. Oh well. After a lot of meetings on Friday afternoon I went to the hotel and sat in the lobby lounge and caught up on a bunch of work and had a very light dinner of pasta that I estimate was only ~500 cals, then a French toast s' more that the hotel lounge was offering…yum! I also drank two big glasses of water with Nuun tablets. I asked the hotel for a bathroom scale and weighed myself at 139.2 lb before dinner. This was a bit irritating because I had managed to get down to a consistent 137lb for the past couple of weeks. But I figured if I got the system moving on race morning I could unload another pound or two, so set my alarm 30 minutes earlier than I originally planned, thus giving me a wakeup 2 hours before the 7:30am start.
Of course no travel race is without logistical snafus, and this was no exception. As I unpacked my race gear on Thursday night to doublecheck everything I realized I forgot my running shorts!!! I have a pair of 'lucky' Nike 2" racing splits and despite laying them out as I was packing, they somehow didn't make it into my bag. So on Friday I want to a local running store and bought the only pair of shorts that would suit, which were 7" shorts with some sort of spandex integrated interior. I figured that was as good as it would get but tried to find another store because the forecast was for some wind and rain and I didn't want the 7" shorts flapping all over the place and getting soaked. Finally later on Friday I found another store near my hotel that had some Nike 2" racing splits and I bought those. So not my 'lucky shorts' but glad I found them.
I did not sleep well on Friday night, possibly because I was doing mental math on the paces I'd have to achieve if I was X seconds behind the "key numbers", or maybe because I had a few too many cups of coffee over the course of the day. But I knew my sleep was banked up from the night before and my carbohydrate stores were loaded up. The hay was in the barn…
Race morning I woke up, had a shower and put on my new shorts, a white running singlet and EN arm warmers. I checked the weather and was happy to see it was 39 degrees, 6mph wind from the NE and the forecasted rain had slipped back to a few hours after the race. Great stuff! I put on my sunglasses with yellow high-contrast lenses due to the cloud cover. I looked in the mirror and of course I looked completely ridiculous. Awesome!!
I walked to the nearby Starbucks. It was supposed to open at 6am but at 6:05 there where people waiting outside, including one other person running in the race. I got my coffee and went back to the hotel to drink my coffee with a couple of chocolates in the lobby and wait for my system to start moving. By ~6:40am 2 other hotel guests came to the lobby who were doing the race so we agreed to share a cab to the start line. I was now pretty stressed that after all that coffee and being awake for over an hour I still hadn't lost any weight. Usually that race morning process works perfectly. Nothing I could do.
I showed up at the start as the corrals opened and at 7am took about a 400 yard jog then ate 3 caffeinated Shot Bloks. That was my "warmup". No need to visit the port-a-potties unfortunately (not that I could see any nearby), so I got into the corral and was ready to rock! I took a caffeinated gel 2 minutes before the gun per the gameplan.
The gun went off, I crossed the start line at ~3 seconds gun time and I settled into a comfortable pace. I ran the first mile in 6:34 which was consistent with my "banking" plan. Over the next few miles I was pleased to see my pace was much faster than I expected. The tailwind helped as did some of the downhills (although the course netted out flat over those miles). I had effectively "settled into" a pace that was a lot faster than expected. By mile 5 I figured I had "banked" 2 more minutes than I expected, and began the mental math to re-figure target splits for a 1:28. But I knew all bets were off until the uphill 2 miles. At the 5 mile marker I took my gel per the gameplan and expected the ascent to start…but it didn't. Furthermore we were in a sort of sheltered valley running north so the headwind was not excessive. I concentrated on "running the tangents" and wondering when that 200 feet of gain would hit.
At the 6 mile marker the course went straight up and it was brutal. I didn't look at my watch but just concentrated on staying in control and shortening my stride and leaning a bit forward. At the top of the hill I crossed the 10k marker and looked ahead. It didn't look too much "up" compared with my expectation, so I just recovered from the climb and started running again. My watch was showing over 8:00 pace so I didn't know where my pace would net out or how much banked time I was eating into. I didn't look at my pace at the end of that mile but rather looked at the clock because mile 7 was a "key number. The number was 46:00 which was 2 minutes below the 48:00 target. So I was starting to get really psyched about the race…I knew I had downhill for the next 2 miles and that unless disaster struck I was going to hit 1:30 and had a really great shot at sub-1:28.
The downhill miles were awesome but I wasn't checking my lap pace much. I was just concentrating on running the tangents. At the 15k mark I realized I had blown away my 15k PB and that was really nice. Then at the 10 mile marker, another "key number" I saw 1:05 and a lot of change and that was just great. I ran the numbers in my head and figured even at a 7:00 pace I probably had the 1:28 nailed. This is where I should have calculated what I needed for the sub-1:26 but I never had contemplated that so didn't realize how close I was.
The next two miles turned out to be uphill and mostly eastbound into the headwind. The runners were pretty spread out so I couldn't draft off of anyone. I felt great but my legs were starting to get tired and I was a bit worried about slowing down. This was another mistake…I should have focused on speeding up not avoiding slowing down. My head was not screwed on right based on being outside the mental model I had set up for this race. A few guys passed me at this point and I checked my pace…since it was better than 6:43 I figured I was fine and not losing ground on the 1:28 (crap…should have known the other numbers). At some point we turned south out of the wind but it was uphill and that was hard.
At the 12 mile mark I was at almost exactly 1:19. Before the race I figured 45 seconds for the stub mile and so realized right then my goal should have been 1:26 and I had probably screwed myself unless I could run about a 6-minute mile, which I knew was next to impossible. My legs were pretty tired but I was feeling really good so I just hit it and hoped for the best. I also turned my race number around in case the finish line photo was good and worth purchasing.
I turned the corner to the finish and ran right through the line. Unlike with most of my races, my HR was not out of control at the end, so I was lucid and didn't elicit the usual "are you ok" from the med staff. I got my finisher's medal and proceeded through the finisher chute which was pretty empty at that point (but totally geared up for the 35,000 runners who would be showing up soon!). I got my picture taken by a handful of the photographers and only later realized I was still wearing the silly yellow sunglasses. Oh well. I collected a Powerbar Protein Plus, a Gatorade and some chocolate milk and there was even a person handing out reusable bags at the end for you to store all the loot! I didn't see any taxis so went straight to the nearby metro stop and got close to my hotel and then found a taxi to take me the rest of the way. A quick shower then straight to the airport where I got an early flight home. Just landed in time for a late lunch in ChiTown with the family!
So that's my long report!!
Comments
Whats with going over 7min mile on mile 7? Hill or no hill? Kidding aside. Congratulations on your awesome performance and absolutely crushing the previous PR.
Do you use the Garmin data to determine your new vdot? Since my Garmin always measures long and that is what I train by I always use that data!
Very impressive, Happy for you.... Tim,
Matt - congrats on your fantastic race. So happy for you. Based on all you excellent workouts you've posted I was hoping that your race execution would capitalize on your fitness. Mission accomplished. You ran a very smart. Too bad about missing the 1:25 mark but now you have another time to shoot for some day. I think you've got the run and ride fitness for the TTT. Now go swim. Congrats again.
PS - I thought the race was tomorrow and was going to send you a "good luck...go for it" text today. Sorry I missed sending you some mojo.
Congrats again that is an awesome accomplishment.
Michael
Hope to see you again this season... J.T.
Gearing up for my first race of 2013 next week, also a HM. Great report and congrats on the PR. Sounds like you still had some juice in the tank at that finish line. Sometimes technology can push us other times it holds us back. The shorter the race I personally find that my garmin slows me down, so I go out of my way to not use it and just interpret the data afterwards.
Enjoy those new training paces.
Sorry to have missed this earlier Matt..congrats!...a great run & read.