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.
Monday, May 5, 2014
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!
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!
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