Sunday February 4th - HALF MARATHON

I finished! What a journey. If anyone has been reading my blogs, you are aware that I have basically done ZERO training for this 1/2 marathon. I averaged probably 4 miles / week, and that was once a week. So with that, my only real goal was to finish and have a good time. Drew pulled out of the race about a week ago, which was a bummer. He had been running faster than me lately, so I doubt we would have run together anyway.

5:45 am. Doonise and Kevin arive at our house. The four of us took off for the HB all excited for the run. Doonise was doing the 5K, and its great to see her getting more and more into exercising. Right now she speed walks, and from what she says, she can beat some runners doing it. Her goal is to do a 1/2 marathon soon, possibly LB in the fall. We couldn't find Kurt and Steve, so it ended up being just Kevin and I taking off from the start. This year, they decided to have everyone move off in waves every few minutes. We corallled into the 10 min mile area and ended up taking off 10 minutes after the gun. That worked out good with timing purposes, but I also was running with Drew's Garmin Forerunner 201.

We took off at a good pace and I noticed at mile 1 we were 9:40. Knowing that the first quarter of that mile had to be slow, I was worried we were taking off too fast. The next few miles my watch said we ranged from 8:50 to 9:30, which started worrying me. This isn't my pace! I'm a 10 min miler. I tried to back off, but backing off only got me to 9:20s. Then I made the decision. What the hell, let's keep this pace. Sure it will hurt at mile 9 or 10, but hey, what if it doesn't? Last year I negative split my 1/2 marathon, averaging 10:30 for the first and 9:30 on the back. So let's do something different.

Miles 5 and 6 we were still going strong. Good music on the ipod was keeping me going. I was feeling great having a blast. There is something nice about running along Pacific Coast Highway and having the Pacific Ocean to your left and right. At the halfway point, I figured I was right about 1:01 or 1:02. I'm not 100% sure. I was like WOW. Then of course my brain starting thinking, "Maybe you can break 2 hours!!". Of course I had forgotten that I had taken it out harder than in the past and most likely wasn't going to have the strong finish like last year. Looking at the results right now, at 5.2 mile marker I was 48:59, averaging 9:26 miles. Nice job Brian!! So anyway, around mile 7 or 8 the hills begin. This is when I felt like my pace was going to fall off. Up up we go. But I was still feeling good. Around mile 8 Kevin told me to go. This was the third time he stopped. The first time I waited for him. The second time he told me to go and then caught up. The third time he was too sore I guess. Mile 9 I felt like I was coming down in energy. I was drinking more and more. The blistering pace (in Brian's world), was taking its toll on me. Per the website, my 9.4 mile pace had gone down form 9:26 to 9:22. I was stilll going strong!! Then problems occured.

Around mile 10 I wanted to back up my songs to the beginning so that for the final 3.1 miles I could have songs I know would be good. But somehow I messed up the ipod and it paused. To top it off, its in a Nike Ipod Plus arm band so I had to take it out to fix it. But before I did that, I spent over a minute futzing with it and going crazy. By the time I pulled it out, fixed it and put it back in, 2 minutes were spent and I looked up. My mojo was gone. I was delerious. I was hot. I was tired. My rhythmn was gone. I was bummed. In an attempt to keep my motivation from going, I instead eliminated more than I had wanted to. I began to fall apart. "Keep it going Brian", I would say. But it was so hard. My goal to break 2 hours had turned to 2:05 and then to just go what I did last year (2:11) to just finish. I wanted to stop and walk. I dreamt of the finish line. 28 minutes to go. Too many songs. 2.1 miles to go. 20 minutes. 6 X 3:00min songs. That's too many songs. I can't do it. My pace fell apart. I started averaging 10:30, 11:20, 9:50, 10:40. I was all over the map. People were passing me. The sun was beating down on me. Boy it was hot. Finally with 1 mile to go, I put my body back together and got back into the race. Back down to 9:40 running I was ok. It won't be too bad. 3 more songs. No make it two. Sporty Spice (Melanie B or C or whomever) came on the ipod... "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII TURN TO YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, like a flower leaning towards the sun". I was going good now. Let's pick up. GO GO GO. I saw the clock. 2:04 it read. WOW. I can get under 2:06 if I keep this up. My body was feeling better. I was back in the groove. I was going to do it. I was going to go about 9:30 miles. Closer. Closer. There it is. Wait, I got to pee. No the finish. Go!! I stopped the clock 2:05.23 I was stoked. Overall pace was 9:34 (damn mile 11 and 12!!) 6 minutes faster than last year with no training!!!

http://runraceresults.com/Event.asp?ID=RCHA2007

I am bib 4660.

I love this race. Not too long. Not too short. I'll be back next year. And hey, I went from 10 min miles to 9:30 miles. Let's aim for 9 min miles next year!!