Best half

I ran the Quad Cities half-marathon Sunday at 1:49:17, which is my personal best for the half. (Chip time was 0:19 faster than my GPS, which I now realize I started too soon and turned off too late.) That’s 266/1,525 overall, 41/95 in age group (57th percentile), 202/691 men. At right, there I am returning Madelyn’s thumbs up as I enter the home stretch. She was also ringing a cowbell like the dickens: that’s my noisy girl!

Obviously, given a personal best, FIRST training served me well. I was very well-prepared, feeling super throughout, and enjoyed every bit of the race. Two days later, I still feel great, with only a little tightness in my calves yesterday and this morning, which I worked out just now with a short easy run.

I’m very pleased with my pacing. Other than a 7:58/mi half-mile at five miles, which was all downhill, I kept it pretty constant for the first 10 miles. I did log a 9:14/mi half-mile when I crossed the Government Bridge. Not only did I have to slow down because of some runner traffic and the steel surface, my GPS lost signal. Once my GPS caught up when I got off the bridge, I did some quick calculations, figured I had a shot at breaking 1:50, and accelerated. I passed a bunch of people the last three miles. Probably 50. Nobody except the elite marathoners passed me (since they share part of the course). That was great. All that telling myself, “Slow, slow,” for the first 10 miles worked: it was easy to drop to 7:50/mi for the last three. Here’s a graph of my pacing:

And wow, did those elite marathoners zip by. The fastest finished at 2:18, or 5:15/mi, which in elite terms isn’t that fast (the world record is 2:03:59, or 4:43/mi). But yes, they did make me feel slow.

Once again, props to the QC organizers for putting together a fine event. As always, the single lane on the I-74 bridge was very crowded, and I wish there was a way to break up the chains of folks running five abreast: they forced faster runners to push past, and that’s not fun for anyone involved. But that’s the only complaint I had. On the other hand, they did put mats down on the Government Bridge, making it easier to run safely. The in-race support was very good, and the post-race eats solid, even if the beer was lame. (Miller Lite. I saw someone drop his cup and gave him my ticket.)

What’s next? Some easy runs, some biking, and a couple of 5K races. Then a 10K to calibrate my pace, and another 16 week cycle. A 1:45 half would be 8:00 pace. Hrm…