Woodlands Half-Marathon Race Report

This might have been my perfect race, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  If you read my last couple race reports you know I wasn’t very confident in my sub 1:40 (7:38 mile pace) prospects.  I guess I had the perfect storm of taking time off, perfect race weather, and the perfect course.  

Highlights

• Mile marker 1 must have been misplaced.  The timer said I ran in it in 6:47 but nobody’s GPS beeped.  When mine, and several others, chirped I was at a 7:37 pace.  Right where I needed to be.
• A group of about 10 of us all settled in about the same pace but spread out over 50 or so yards.
• Either a 7:25ish pace or a 7:50ish pace felt comfortable, anything in between felt unnatural.  I opted for faster as it’s almost always better to “hang on” than to “catch up”.
• Not sure why more people didn’t run the curves smarter.  Inside radius is much better/shorter than the outside radius of a 2-4 lane road.
• Negative splits baby!  7:29 average pace the first half, 7:24 average pace the second half.
• Fastest mile was a 7:19 at mile 9, after I had a cliff shot.  Several times afterwards I saw sub 7 minute pace on my GPS.
• That little voice that tells you to "slow down just a bit because it will be so much more comfortable and nobody will know the difference" never made an appearance.
• Finished in 1:37:47 (7:28 pace) destroying my old PR by over 5 minutes.  184^th overall (out of 3445); 141^st out of 1456 men; and 25^th out of 255 in my age/gender group.

Keys to success

• The weather; 40 degrees, clear sky, slight breeze makes for a frigid start, but an awesome run once you get moving.
• I had pretty low mileage in the 2 weeks leading up to this race.  The legs were well rested.
• Hitting the gym.  Box jumps, lunges, and core workouts had a noticeable positive effect on my running.  Still need to lose the 15 pounds I gained since I ran this race last year.
• The course.  With water stations every 1.5 miles and the mile markers at every mile, there was plenty of things to keep you motivated to the next small goal.

I’m ready to not race for awhile, but at the same time I really want to test myself in a road marathon.  It’s been over 10 years since I’ve ran one and I think I can get well under 4 hours at this point.  I haven’t signed up for the Hog’s Hunt 50K yet, but I’m pretty sure I will be doing it as a TransRockies training run.