Whiskey Row Half Marathon

It was finally the weekend for the half marathon I've been training for, the Whiskey Row half in Prescott.  My training I feel was pretty good for the first 8-9 weeks, but then started falling off quite a bit toward the end (which is the opposite of what I'd shoot for).  But I finished the race, and put forth a good effort.  I wasn't too happy with the time, and I know I could have easily improved it with a better nutrition plan for the race (or a nutrition plan for the race really)... but overall I'm ok with how it turned out. 

Since I knew the race was out and back up a big hill, I decided I would try to push myself on the way up the hill, and then just see what I had left on the way back down.  I feel like this would have worked okay, but I needed to bring some gels/cubes/something to eat along the way.  I think I managed less than 12 minutes/mile average on the way up, which I'm happy with considering the 1400+ feet of elevation gain.  However, on the way back down I couldn't go as fast as I was hoping during the hills (just letting gravity take me caused too much jarring to continue for long stretches).  And then I basically bonked around mile 10.  At that point I knew I couldn't PR (which was probably a pipe dream to begin with on this course), so I just focused on chewing up the miles walking as fast as I could manage. 

Ended up at 2:48:34, which is still my 3rd best time (better than everything outside the Rock and Roll Arizona 1/2s I've done), so that is not too shabby.  Nutrition I think was the real downfall.  According to my Garmin, I burned 2400 calories, and all I had was a bit of Gatorade and one orange wedge.  I think including a few gels throughout the race would have made a big difference on the way back down the hill. 

Scottsdale Giant Race

Well, it has now been quite a long time since this race, and I have a new one to write about, but I guess I'll give this one a quick summary first.  We went down to Scottsdale for a Giant's themed weekend, running the 9K Giant Race, and then watching the spring training game later that day.

The race went very well, my goal was an hour or less.  I think I was able to run the whole thing without stopping (I've been practicing steady pace rather than run/walk)... that is a first for me for really any distance run.  Finished in 52:21, which is a 9:22 pace, which is much better than my best 10K pace (12:00 pace during an Olympic triathlon).

Oh yeah, the other funny thing about this race was that there was a mixup of bibs... I ended up with the bib of someone named 'Phil Duda' from Scottsdale or something, and he ran with mine.  So, when I checked the official results for my name, I was something like 5 minutes faster than I really ran!

Whiskey Row Half Marathon Plan

Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
1 - 1/27	R :30	CT :40	R :35	CT :40	Rest	R-Endurance 4 miles	Rest
2 - 2/3	R :30	CT :40	R :35	CT :40	Rest	R-Endurance 4 miles	Rest
3 - 2/10	R :30	CT :40	R :35	CT :40	Rest	R-Endurance 5 miles	Rest
4 - 2/17	R :35	CT :40	R :40	CT :40	Rest	R-Endurance 4 miles	Rest
5 - 2/24	R :35	CT :40	R :40	CT :40	Rest	R-Endurance 6 miles	Rest
6 - 3/3	R :40	CT :40	R :40	CT :40	Rest	R-Endurance 7 miles	Rest
7 - 3/10	R :40	CT :40	R :45	CT :40	Rest	R-Endurance 8 miles	Rest
8 - 3/17	R :40	CT :40	R :45	CT :40	R :30	R-Endurance 6 miles	Rest
9 - 3/24	R :40	CT :40	R :50	CT :40	R :30	R-Endurance 9 miles	Rest
10 - 3/31	R :45	CT :40	R :50	CT :40	Rest	R-Endurance 6 miles	Rest
11 - 4/7	R :45	CT :40	R :50	CT :40	R :30	R-Endurance 10 miles	Rest
12 - 4/14	R :45	CT :40	R :50	CT :40	R :30	R-Endurance 8 miles	Rest
13 - 4/21	R :45	CT :40	R :45	CT :30	Rest	R-Endurance 6 miles	Rest
14 - 4/28	R :40	R :30	Rest	R :20	Rest	Race Day!	Nada