Reports a little late as I've been a little busy lately.
Short: 1:48:24 (8:16) 54:34/53:50
195/551 Overall
9/26 M55-59 AG
13 minute PR !!
The Humboldt Redwoods 1/2 marathon is an out and back along the Avenue of the Giants near the small town of Weott, CA, about 40 miles south of Eureka. I try to run either this race in the fall or The Avenue of the Giants in the spring or sometimes both every year.
There had been a lot of rain in the area the week or so prior to the race, but Sunday dawned clear and cool, IRC, around 45° at race time (9AM local) and no wind. Not that you'd feel any wind on the floor of a Redwood forest.
I met up with Tammy and her family a little before the race, and then left to do a 2 mile fast walk, slow jog warm up. My goal for the race was to finally go under 2 hours, having missed it by a minute at my last half earlier this year, and also to help Tammy go under 2 hours as well. I thought maybe 1:56 may be doable if everything went right.
The race isn't chip timed, so Tammy and I lined up near the front. I expected it to take a while to get around some of the slower runners, but there wasn't much congestion at the start. I'm not much good at pacing and I thought I was going a little faster than I wanted to during the first mile maybe around 9:20 or so, but was really shocked when we hit the first mile split at 8:43. I tried to slow down a little, but hit the next mile in 8:07. This was a little faster than Tammy and I had talked about, so I hoped she wasn't going too fast trying to keep up. I'd turn around and run backwards every so often, looking for her and hoping she wasn't too far back. At the turnaround I was relieved to see Tammy looking strong and only 2 minutes behind, and since I was several minutes ahead of our predicted pace, I just decided to go for it. The last 6 miles were at 7:55 to 8:16 pace.
This was one of those races where it seemed I was running downhill both directions. I passed several people in the last few miles, some walking after having gone out too fast (been there, done that) and found a young 20 something lady running her first half marathon to........er, pace me the last 3 or 4 miles. (Thanks, Moira.... and I hope I didn't come across as too skeevy with that impromptu sweaty finish line hug, but hey, I'm old, I can get away with it.
)
One thing I noticed about running with this 8:15 mm group, it's a lot more serious than when you're running with the 10mm group. There's a minimum of chitchat between runners as opposed to the non stop talking you hear farther back in the pack, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's pretty cool to hang for 13 miles with the faster runners.
FR: Lime green singlet, grey shorts, Brooks Adreneline GT7S, white "Rogue Valley Runners" cap.
No camera, no pix
Thanks for reading
John
Short: 1:48:24 (8:16) 54:34/53:50
195/551 Overall
9/26 M55-59 AG
13 minute PR !!
The Humboldt Redwoods 1/2 marathon is an out and back along the Avenue of the Giants near the small town of Weott, CA, about 40 miles south of Eureka. I try to run either this race in the fall or The Avenue of the Giants in the spring or sometimes both every year.
There had been a lot of rain in the area the week or so prior to the race, but Sunday dawned clear and cool, IRC, around 45° at race time (9AM local) and no wind. Not that you'd feel any wind on the floor of a Redwood forest.
I met up with Tammy and her family a little before the race, and then left to do a 2 mile fast walk, slow jog warm up. My goal for the race was to finally go under 2 hours, having missed it by a minute at my last half earlier this year, and also to help Tammy go under 2 hours as well. I thought maybe 1:56 may be doable if everything went right.
The race isn't chip timed, so Tammy and I lined up near the front. I expected it to take a while to get around some of the slower runners, but there wasn't much congestion at the start. I'm not much good at pacing and I thought I was going a little faster than I wanted to during the first mile maybe around 9:20 or so, but was really shocked when we hit the first mile split at 8:43. I tried to slow down a little, but hit the next mile in 8:07. This was a little faster than Tammy and I had talked about, so I hoped she wasn't going too fast trying to keep up. I'd turn around and run backwards every so often, looking for her and hoping she wasn't too far back. At the turnaround I was relieved to see Tammy looking strong and only 2 minutes behind, and since I was several minutes ahead of our predicted pace, I just decided to go for it. The last 6 miles were at 7:55 to 8:16 pace.
This was one of those races where it seemed I was running downhill both directions. I passed several people in the last few miles, some walking after having gone out too fast (been there, done that) and found a young 20 something lady running her first half marathon to........er, pace me the last 3 or 4 miles. (Thanks, Moira.... and I hope I didn't come across as too skeevy with that impromptu sweaty finish line hug, but hey, I'm old, I can get away with it.
)One thing I noticed about running with this 8:15 mm group, it's a lot more serious than when you're running with the 10mm group. There's a minimum of chitchat between runners as opposed to the non stop talking you hear farther back in the pack, not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's pretty cool to hang for 13 miles with the faster runners.
FR: Lime green singlet, grey shorts, Brooks Adreneline GT7S, white "Rogue Valley Runners" cap.
No camera, no pix
Thanks for reading
John
And something tells me you and I won't have a chance to chit-chat during the Carlsbad Marathon because you could easily be ahead of me. Surely we'll be all talked out the night before, though.
