Tales of a Bariathlete: BAA Half Marathon

Sorry, I haven't posted in a while due to...life.

I'll jump right in with my latest activity: The Boston Athletic Association's Half Marathon. These are the folks that throw THE Boston Marathon. Well run, well supplied and general AWESOME event, except for 2 things. First, I didn't love the course that was a decline until mile 7 when it became and uphill battle til the end. Seems they may be trying to reproduce the Marathon route. Second, and the only REAL complaint is that it was a real pain in the butt to find family/friends at the end. I understand they don't want to feed EVERYONE who shows up, but I was frustrated with working so hard to find John at the end of the race, and I had my cell phone on me. I imagine plenty of people didn't carry their cell and I saw a lot of lost looking runners and spectators at the end.

With those being my only whining points, it was a great race, really.

Fueling up before the start. GU w/caffeine!

I corralled with the 10:00/mile folks, and hoped for the best. It was 42 degrees at race time. I decided to ditch my disposable clothes about 10 minutes before the start and not "dispose" of them completely. It was crowded, but it was a fast paced start - we were jogging freely at the start and got up to speed fast. I pretty much spent most of the race telling myself to slow down since I knew the hills would require some energy at the end.

This is a few yards after the start - we're moving!

I ran the first 5K without stopping/walking, but I planned to walk all my inhaler and GU "breaks". I mostly stuck to that, but did have a few breaks to stop and stretch and sometimes just to walk. The walking was disappointing, but it was still forward progress, and that's just got to be good enough for now. It looks like the walking parts only took up about 10 minutes of my total race, and at least I have a benchmark now to think about.

Other observations: I wish more people pulled over to the right when they decided to walk. People walking in the middle of the course really aggravate me. I was thrilled to see/hear so many runners cheering as we passed (and were passed by) a female wheelchair racer who got caught up in the swarm of runners. People were supportive to eachother, and I love that about running. I remember telling one guy who I passed going in the opposite direction close to a turnaround "we're doing this!". He said "hell yeah" and picked up his pace. GO THAT GUY!

I'm a sucker for the photographers. I smile and give the thumbs up to all that I see. I hope to see some good pictures from the pros when they get uploaded.

I liked having a clock at every mile marker. I wasn't so much concerned with the times, but I liked having the mile markers easy to see! My last half I never saw a mile marker until mile 8 or 9 - it was all guesswork until then. Now I have my Garmin, so I could know how far I'd gone no matter what, but if I hadn't, the mile markers were easy to find.
Anyway, my race went ok. I had broken it up in my mind into inhaler times (mile 3, 6, 9, 12) and GU breaks (4, 6, 10, 12). The inhaler is just what seems to work for me. The GU was timed for distance and hills. The biggest uphills were at miles 7 and 11, so I wanted to be ready.

During mile 12 we could see the stadium finish line, so I got excited, but then we turned away from it, and found that to be totally defeating mentally. I had studied the course map for elevation so much that I was suprised at the turn, and ended up walking part of the last mile, which pissed me off. I was able to collect myself though, and charge towards the finish. I just kept telling myself that the pain is short term and that I was tough enough to finish strong. I dug deep and I'm glad I pulled it out since I could see that a PR was in reach. I had hoped to make it to 2:15, but figured out for sure at mile 10 that it wasn't going to happen. The PR did feel great though, and proud to be a 2:20 Half Marathoner.