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USA Half Marathon Championships

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Location:

SLC,UT,

Member Since:

Apr 28, 2011

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

PR Table and Notable Races

Marathon:
2:21:12 (Chicago); 2:20:41 (CIM)

Half Marathon: 1:05:45 (Long Beach)
10K: 30:03 (Portland)

All race results:
2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016

Personal:

   

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Running MilesSwimming YardsBike Miles
75.700.000.00
Running MilesSwimming YardsBike Miles
10.200.000.00

AM - 10.2 miles in Seaside. Today I got to do the job I might be best at - pacing really fast women! :-) Andrea was doing a cutdown tempo so I set the pace for her... she nailed the workout. It felt good for me to run faster than jogging and get my legs going through a bigger range of motion.

After the run we hit the hot tub one last time, then visited Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park. Beautiful day, the sun even peaked out a little. The Oregon coast is, however, pretty chilly in general. Then back to Portland (via Dairy Queen) and flew home in the evening. Saw lots of snow-capped volcanoes from the plane, which makes me want to get back up to the PacNW (with skis!) for a volcano tour.

Got a lot more pics from the weekend to go through - here are a few from today...

Comments(13)
Running MilesSwimming YardsBike Miles
12.300.000.00

AM - 8 miles, up to work. Three easy days in a row! I figured if I wasn't going to do the 10K/5K double, I might as well get myself 100% rested for Duluth. Nothing left to prove in training at this point.

PM - 4.3 miles down to SHP.

I put up a bunch more pictures from the Oregon coast on Wasatch & Beyond. 

Andrea also shot a little video during the 10K...

 

Comments(3)
Running MilesSwimming YardsBike Miles
12.200.000.00

AM - 8 miles, Last Chance Workout! Warmed up 2 miles around SHP, then down to the track. Cheerleading practice has already started - but they are staying out of lane one (so far). Workout was 5 x 1000m (400m) + 5 x 200m (45s). Splits - 3:04, 3:04, 3:02, 3:02, 2:59, 32.0, 30.8, 31.3, 30.8, 30.4. I have a little weakness in my left butt (pulled something getting out of bed on Sunday morning), but it doesn't really affect me while running, so I'm 0% concerned about it.

PM - 4.2 miles. My concern about my butt went up to about 5% during the course of the day, but it doesn't bother me when I'm running... I only notice it when walking slowly, and I don't plan on doing much of that this weekend. The concern-o-meter would have to get to about 9000% before I'm really worried :-)

The fields are stacked for Saturday and the weather is looking like it will cooperate. Here's the entry lists. Outside of the Olympic Trials Marathon, it has to be the deepest road race in the USA this year... ~85 women and 120 men with solid credentials. The key will be to run smart - not get out too fast and have something left to mow people down in the last 5-8K.

Comments(19)
Running MilesSwimming YardsBike Miles
11.600.000.00

AM - 7.4 miles w/ Andrea, Allie, and Fritz. Nice run, feeling good.

PM - 4.2 miles. Nice and hot outside - love this summer weather! 

Comments(4)
Running MilesSwimming YardsBike Miles
8.400.000.00

AM - 4.4 miles, horsepark loop w/ Andrea. I put tracking / webcast info on Wasatch & Beyond.

PM - 4 miles. Around SHP and then 4 x 400m @ race pace (74s). If you just think of a half-marathon as 52x400m w/ zero rest, its a piece of cake, right? :-) 

Fantastic discovery on Google Maps last night - our hotel in Duluth is approximately 600 feet from Dairy Queen. The race organizers really knew what they were doing when it comes to setting us up in a hotel with everything we need (ie. ice cream nearby)...

 

Comments(12)
Running MilesSwimming YardsBike Miles
4.000.000.00

Flew out at 6am to Duluth (via Minneapolis). The hospitality level has been off the charts - we had a driver waiting for us at the airport holding a sign with our names. Never experienced that before! :-) Checked in at the Canal Park Lodge, which is the race HQ - got our bibs, then went to the media luncheon at the convention center, then went to the information meeting for the national championships. Definitely the biggest group of ultra-fit people I've ever been in a room with! We met up w/ Derek D and his wife Allison, who is also running the women's half champs. Finally back to the hotel and met Erik (Hamdog) for a run along the lake. Ran 35 minutes plus some strides. Feeling good, ready to roll early tomorrow morning.

First impressions of this whole race atmosphere - the Grandmas Marathon knows how to put on a great race! The volunteers are super helpful and nice (perhaps even surpassing Utah standards!). I could easily gain 10 lbs before tomorrow with all the free food (and beer - yep, the elite athlete hospitality suite is stocked) they are throwing at us. And speaking of food/drinks, it seems like the party will be going all day and all night tomorrow. Its gonna be a lot of fun. I can't wait to get out there.

The weather should be good - not as good as last year, but not like the Boston Massacre either. It supposed to be 57 degrees at the start, light winds, and 100% humidity. Guess that means I won't have to drink anything, since I can just breathe in my fluids.

Comments(6)
Race: USA Half Marathon Championships (13.1 Miles) 01:06:02, Place overall: 27
Running MilesSwimming YardsBike Miles
17.000.000.00

I simply didn't have a sub 1:05 half-marathon in me today. I'm not disappointed in my race, although a few seconds faster would have been awfully nice (more on that later). In terms of time/performance, this was probably the second best race of my life (after last fall's Long Beach Half Marathon). My 30:03 10K last week would have predicted that I should run in the high 1:06s, so I beat that by quite a bit... although I expected that I would. Here's how it played out...

Bus left our hotel at 4:45am. Weather was good - calm winds and cool (but definitely very humid, 90-100%). There were basically 4 separate races - the Men's National Championship at 6:15, Women at 6:25, the Gerry Bjorkland Half Marathon at 6:45, then the Grandma's Marathon at 7:45. Quite a lineup - its amazing that the race pulled this off without any hiccups at all. I'm incredibly impressed by everything Grandmas/Duluth has done this weekend - they put on a world class event.

Warmed up 2 miles + strides. Then we were on the line and ready to roll. I positioned myself a row or two back - I didn't want to get sucked out too fast. Gun went off and I held back... there was immediate separation of ~40 guys in front of me. I let that pack go - it wasn't where I needed to be. A big gap formed within the first mile between the gigantic lead pack and my pack, which was 12-15 guys strong. We hit the mile in 4:54 - perfect. The next two miles were 5:00 and 4:55. Still right where I wanted to be. Due to the rolling nature of this course, even effort does not result in even splits. Its a deceptive course - fair, but definitely not super-fast unless you have a tailwind. Its point to point, but the starting and finishing elevation are the same (make sense, it goes along the lake, and lakes don't have a "lower" end).

 

Miles 4-6 were 5:04, 5:04, 4:56. Still running well, but already falling off that sub 1:05 pace I wanted to target. Our pack was down to about 7-8 guys and we were working together pretty well. When the pace would start to lag, I'd move to the front and try to inject some speed. I did that several times throughout the middle 10 miles of the race. I recognized a few of the guys in the group - Fred Joslyn and Kevin Castille (who recently set USA Master's records of 14:00 and 28:57). Kevin and I pretty much ran stride for stride the entire race (he ended up beating me by a fraction of a second). Super fast for an "old" guy! :-)

I'm getting off topic... back to the race. This is where is started to get tough. Miles 7-10 were 5:05, 5:10, 5:04, 5:10. Ouch. Those 5:10s really hurt, mentally. We were all still in a pack and no one really took the incentive to stretch it out - I tried to on the downward side of Lemon Drop Hill (~15K), but I just couldn't get my legs to go any faster than low 5-minute pace.

After 10 miles you start to come into Duluth and the crowds get a lot bigger. Its a fun place to be running. Our pack splintered at some point during miles 11-12, it went down to 3 guys, and we were starting to pick off guys who had been out ahead of us and were falling back. I missed the 11 mile marker but the split for 2 miles was 10:10. Not terrible but this should have been faster since its gradually downhill at this point. I started to find some faster rhythm in the final 1.1 miles 5:25, so ~4:50/mile pace). There were about 5 of us all running together in the final stretch. I didn't quite have enough kick. Official time was 1:06:02 and I was 27th place overall.

It wasn't a long wait before Erik came in (PR!), and then we watched Andrea bring it home. Very exciting to see her duking it out w/ Dot McMahon in the final straightaway! 1:17:21 was a very, very good race for her. I was happy, relieved, and proud to see her run great (and that her injuries held up). We cooled down 2 miles along the lake with Allison D (who ran a huge PR and finished one place after Andrea). Then back to the hotel for a shower before watching Derek D finish up a very good run in the marathon.

Full results are here.

Analysis / Thoughts...

There was a $500 bonus for sub 1:06:00... so missing that by 2 seconds totally stinks. But I can't complain too much because its my fault for not sprinting harder at the end - I cut it too close. Plus the race paid my way out here and covered our hotel, food, etc. The hospitality here has been world class - I've never been treated like such a rock star... Grandma's even outdoes Boston. I already have this one on my calendar for next June.

I gave it a good shot today. It was clear by mile 4 or 5 that I wasn't breaking 1:05. Really, the times across the board weren't super fast. If you look at the guys who finished ahead of me, pretty much all of them are Olympic Trials qualifiers, so its not like I'm getting beat by a bunch of scrubs. It was an elite, deep race, and going into it, I figured a Top 25-30 finish would be a good outcome. My prediction was spot on. I'm competing well against good competition, and I want to keep racing and testing myself against the best runners. I want to be in the Top 15 in races like this, and that is what I'll keep working towards.

I'm going to shut it down in terms of hard workout and races for a while now. Its been an overall successful first half of the year. I was in the best shape of my life in the month before Boston, and while the marathon was a bit of a disaster, I was able to move forward from there and race well in May and June. Other than Boston I've raced consistently well for 5-6 months now. But I feel like I'm on a bit of a plateau at this point, or at least about to hit one - its hard to hold a high fitness level for months and months - so backing it off for a while (while I am still feeling good and like I have a few more races in my legs) will pay off later this year and beyond.

Today was a fun race. Its fun to be a part of a national championship event and perform at a level that shows you deserve to be there. What makes it even more special is that Andrea and I both had good races today... its awesome to be able to share these kinds of experiences!

A few pics... will post more when we get back. We have lots of post-race parties to attend now! :-)


Comments(33)
Running MilesSwimming YardsBike Miles
75.700.000.00
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