Flower City Half Marathon Race Report - Doug Johnson
Flower City Half Marathon
April 29, 2012 (Sunday)
Rochester, NY
7:30 AM start
Age 32
I started the day off by waking up at 5AM so I could eat a small breakfast and have time for it to settle down before the race actually starts. I took in about 125 mg of caffeine, 8 oz of orange juice, 2 slices of toast with peanut butter, and about 20 oz of Gatorade for breakfast. I did my pre-run stretching routine before leaving for the race. When I go to the race site I stretched again, ran a nice easy 1/2 mile, took in a GU Roctane with a little water and then did my final stretch finishing with about 2 minutes to go before the start (perfect).
Pre-race self-analysis was that I felt pretty good and was set up for a great race. The couple days leading up to the race I did my Saturday long ride on Friday afternoon and swam on Saturday. The legs felt a little fatigued when I had woken up but at race start they felt good. Starting temperature was around 35 degrees, perfect for a fast race. My primary goal was to run a nice evenly paced race at 7 min/mile but I really wanted to come in under 90 minutes if I felt good, which would mean a little bit faster pace.
I lined up about 3 rows back from the front line. The first 1/4 mile maybe is downhill, and my pace was under 6 min/mile. Even though that felt easy (due to adrenaline I'm sure) I knew that was out of the question so I pulled back to just under 7 min/mile. I felt strong after the first mile so started pushing the pace a little bit and started aiming for low 6:50's and tried to keep it there. Mission accomplished...
Mile splits:
1) 6:55 4) 6:48 7) 7:09 10) 6:51 13) 6:37
2) 6:48 5) 6:50 8) 6:50 11) 6:49 14) 6:13
3) 6:51 6) 6:50 9) 6:35 12) 6:57
Last few notes about the race... Mile 6-7 had some elevation gain hence the slower mile. Mile 8-9 was faster than the average pace due to a significant downhill (and trying to get back some of the previously lost time). At mile 10.5 my legs started feeling a little uncomfortable and the RPE started increasing. I struggled with mile 11-12 but knew if I could keep on my pace I could deal with the discomfort for the last mile. I got to 12 a little under pace, kept it going to about 12.5 and then turned it on until the finish for my 2nd fastest mile of the race! My GPS said 1:29:59, but the race clock said 1:29:37. If anything, the race clock should have had more time on it than my GPS because I pressed start at the actual starting line rather than when the "gun" went off. I think they may have started the clock late! In either case I met my goal. Here's the Garmin details: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/172902170
For fuel during the race I took a GU Roctane at mile 4 and a gulp or two of water at all the aid stations which were positioned every 2 miles. I felt a little full at the half way point but that only lasted for a few minutes. I felt like my nutrition was right on.
Final details:
Time: 1:29:59 (PR by 9:27)
7th out of 151 in my age group
81st out of 2252 overall
Comments
Just curious -- what was your most recent 5k test? And what training plan are you doing and where are you in it?
@ Carly, thanks! Yeah, it was a perfect day for a race. On the cool side and lots of sun! Looks like you had a great race as well. Hope you had fun!
@Joe & Coach, thanks. I definitely would not have been able to do that without going through the EN OS. A lot of work paying off!
@Kevin, that's funny! Great race to you! Yeah, that course is great. I'm sure the hills around Mt. Hope cemetary got a lot of people that didn't know about em. They got me last year, ha ha. I live in Victor. Looks like we have a pretty solid EN crew in our area!