When I felt the twinge in my right calf at mile 9, I said out loud, "Oh, no." I knew it would cost me, but at that point I didn't know how much. That became apparent less than 35 minutes later.
It was almost a perfect day for a half-marathon. I didn't run the Rock the Parkway race last year, but apparently it was raining that day. This time the conditions were much better, with temps right around 40 degrees at race time, and no wind whatsoever. That is such a rarity in the midwest that we must celebrate it when it happens, and so I did. A week ago the forecast was calling for 20 mph winds with 30 mph gusts. I'm so glad the forecasters were wrong. In the starting corral the body heat of 6,000+ people kept it bearable with the cold temperatures, but once the race started I was wishing I had my knit mittens. That became less of a concern about two miles into the course.
The first few miles were too packed. I like wave starts much better, and with that many people it's something the organizers might want to think about. After Mile 3 the field started to spread out and I started to move up. As I mentioned earlier this week I wasn't going to think about a PR unless conditions were good, and they were. So I started out with the 2-hour pace group so I wouldn't go out too fast, and that worked pretty well at the start. Passing people was tough, but by Mile 6 I'd passed the 1:45 pace group and my goal was to stay in front of them. I continually saw the 1:40 group ahead of me but never drew closer than a minute or so to them. The last time I remember seeing them was about Mile 7.
As goes with most races in KC, the course was full of rolling hills. The worst was after the turnaround about halfway through the race. That's the point where you should start feeling better because you're seeing everybody behind you, but that uphill was tough.
I was trying to keep my pace between 7:30-8:00/mile. By the time I got to Mile 9 I was closer to the latter than the former. And then came that familiar twinge. This time I did something different.
I walked 30 seconds and then started up again. That seemed to work and held true for a while. I walked for a few brief seconds at water stops and then had to walk another 30 seconds at about Mile 11.5. Those 60 seconds are what cost me.
Early on I knew I wanted to beat my 1:49 time, and if possible to get below 1:45. It would be tight, but that was my goal with the great conditions and what was described as a "fast course for Kansas City." When I reached Mile 12 and put the hammer down I definitely knew there wasn't much wiggle room.
Looking at the Garmin stats, in my last mile I stayed below 8 minutes/mile, and mostly well below. But it wasn't enough to break the 1:45 mark. My finishing time was 1:45:41, and I'm pretty happy with that. I knocked four minutes off my PR, and that's a good start for the first race of the season. Plus it leaves room for improvement. In other stats from the Garmin, my heart rate was 90-95% most of the race, with the exception at the end when I was in the last tenth of a mile when I was redlining at 100%. Which explains why I felt like I wanted to throw up as I was running down the chute.
I'm fully convinced now that the only way to get faster times is to train faster. My overall pace was 8:01/mile. I don't feel like I'm in the best shape possible, but I do feel like the speedwork has paid off so that this guy in his mid-40's can keep setting PR's. Whether or not that leads to a BQ time remains to be seen, but by golly I'm going to keep working at it. And obviously I need to come up with a game plan for my cramping calves. I've said that before, but it's even more critical now. I'm not sure yet what my next race will be, but I'm sure it will be another half. I'm going to keep working on speed and we'll see where that takes me.
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