Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Kaiser Half Marathon
It's slowly becoming a yearly tradition for me - run a half marathon Super Bowl Sunday. This year proved to be no different. I wanted to have a litmus test of where I am in the my Boston training, and this race provided the opportunity.
Being the Pied Piper of running, I rallied the troops and ended up having 6 other people join my carpool to the city. Needless to say, the van was quite rank afterwards, but that's a different story.
The usual suspects, Go Go, the Korean, myself plus a few extra runners - Kate and Lena, Paul and Chris. This was Chris's first attempt at a half and he did fantastic! Kate is trying to recover from injury so her and Lena ran together. The Korean, well what can I say? He hasn't run any distance since December and ran very well. Go Go is Go Go - and Paul ran well too.
The weather was perfect, around 46 degree's at start time and the crowds were great. I think this was the largest turnout for this event, (over 10,000 runners including the 5k peeps)
My goal was to run consistent and see how I felt at the 5 mile mark. I did start out a bit too fast and later paid for it during miles 12 and 13, but I was only a few seconds faster than I really wanted to be. My reference was going to be what I came in at the 5 mile marker and I was shooting for a time between 35 and 36 minutes. I came in under 35 but felt strong.
The course is very deceptive. The early miles tend to flow downhill and if you are not careful, you'll blow your legs out by the time you are on the great highway. I think that is what happened to me, as I was averaging just under 7:00 minute pace per mile until I hit the dreaded 12 and 13 miler markers. I ended up giving a bunch a time back, but according to my Garmin, I finished in a very respectable 1:33:04 (7:02 pace per mile) - even a new PR for me :)
Everyone in the van enjoyed themselves, not many people would spend their super bowl morning racing 13.1 miles.
Being the Pied Piper of running, I rallied the troops and ended up having 6 other people join my carpool to the city. Needless to say, the van was quite rank afterwards, but that's a different story.
The usual suspects, Go Go, the Korean, myself plus a few extra runners - Kate and Lena, Paul and Chris. This was Chris's first attempt at a half and he did fantastic! Kate is trying to recover from injury so her and Lena ran together. The Korean, well what can I say? He hasn't run any distance since December and ran very well. Go Go is Go Go - and Paul ran well too.
The weather was perfect, around 46 degree's at start time and the crowds were great. I think this was the largest turnout for this event, (over 10,000 runners including the 5k peeps)
My goal was to run consistent and see how I felt at the 5 mile mark. I did start out a bit too fast and later paid for it during miles 12 and 13, but I was only a few seconds faster than I really wanted to be. My reference was going to be what I came in at the 5 mile marker and I was shooting for a time between 35 and 36 minutes. I came in under 35 but felt strong.
The course is very deceptive. The early miles tend to flow downhill and if you are not careful, you'll blow your legs out by the time you are on the great highway. I think that is what happened to me, as I was averaging just under 7:00 minute pace per mile until I hit the dreaded 12 and 13 miler markers. I ended up giving a bunch a time back, but according to my Garmin, I finished in a very respectable 1:33:04 (7:02 pace per mile) - even a new PR for me :)
Everyone in the van enjoyed themselves, not many people would spend their super bowl morning racing 13.1 miles.
