getting passed by a 13min/miler

Mercer Island Half Marathon (3/25/07)
Intrepid Summary (thank you ilene) - 2:48:13
rain/42.5 degrees/no wind
AG - 27/27 (1st last) / Sex - 763/768 (5th last) / OA - 1404/1423 (19th last)

I can?t imagine it happening to anyone else in history of running let alone me in a million years (as lab says) but I got a big surprise in this year?s Mercer Island Half Marathon - half mary has a wall and I hit it. The ensuing wallop was as powerfully debilitating as the two I?ve experienced, and assiduously avoided thereafter, in over 90 otherwise uneventful marathons.

Since the longer and harder the better for us fitness runners who mostly just run in convenient weekend races to get as much exercise as possible, I haven?t run many half marathons over the years. However, being just six miles from downtown Seattle, the MIHM provides a good chance for an annual brick[/URL" target="_blank"> over to and around the island before the 9am start.

Because of this year?s early DST, it was my first cycling experience starting in the dark (scary even on bike paths with inconveniently-placed fire hydrants, telephone poles, guy wires, and knee high removable posts to keep out cars). However, except for two other cyclists cowering under a bus shelter on their cell phones, the rain gave me the road around the island pretty much to myself this time but I needed to find a quiet corner in the Mercer Island parking garage after the drenching cycling circuit to change into a dry dry-wick event shirt and cover up under a stylish Bon Marche/Macy?s plastic clothes bag. I can?t remember when, if ever, wearing even one but, in a further feeble attempt to stay warm in the damp chill, I pulled on not one but two cotton mugs under my black poly-running shorts. note: don?t.

Except for a short one mile warm-up (for a possible rare 40/40 week if this Saturday?s Yakima River Canyon Marathon works out as planned), I did everything the same this year as last year. However, I started out chatting with a former president of our local triathlon club who was training for her upcoming multiple ultra-marathon-focus year and, by the time my supposedly waterproof Ironman watch (which had survived several 2.4 miles swims over the years) got unfogged enough to see the digits at three miles, I was, whoops, two minutes per mile faster than the planned 11's.

Though I immediately slowed down to 12-13 minute miles for the next several miles, it was too-little/too-late as mile seven came up and slugged me in the gut just the same as mile 24 in those two walking wallathons from the distant past as runners of all sizes and shapes were passing me like I usually like to pass them.

Thereafter, not even a three minute walk, the improving weather or the beauty of cherry blossoms, pink and white magnolias, yellow skunk cabbage and even a screeching bald eagle could incite me better than 15-16 minutes a mile (okay, and one was 17). Oddly enough, something that kept me going was thinking about what tough times Holly was probably experiencing in her first marathon distance too. - big wrong

As it turns out, it wasn?t a greta run for some others either as I overtook a long-time nemesis friend at the top of the last, steep 1/4 mile hill at mile 12.5 for the first time since passing him at mile 26.0 in a marathon some years ago two days after he broke two ribs in a ladder fall. Then the next day, another MIH runner said this year?s edition was tougher and more tiring than the hilly Sedona Marathon she had just done in February and an Ironman friend looked at the weather at the start and switched to the 10K.

I am so sorry for ever thinking half marathons aren?t hard enough.

http://This message has been edited by Tetsujin30 (edited Mar-30-2007).