Start time: 3/12/2016, 7:51 am
Location: Washington DC, Rock N Roll DC Half Marathon
Distance: 13.1 miles
Average pace: 9:21 min/mile
Total Miles For March: 39 miles
Total Miles For 2016: 192 miles
Current Shoes: 319 miles

Actual race report will be edited in here, honest.

Start time: 3/15/2014, 7:50am
Location: All over Washington DC
Distance: 13.1 miles
Finish time: 2:05:52
Average pace: 9:27min/mile
Total Miles For March: 36 miles
Total Miles For 2014: 164 miles
Current Shoes: 230 miles

Much better than the last two times I ran this course (2011 & 2013), both of which were in the 2:13 range. I ran the first half with Armand, which went well and uneventful. I knew I was going to lose him at the hill exiting Rock Creek Park, in part because I was starting to overheat and I’d decided that once we left the park I was ditching a layer, and partially because he’s great on inclines.

So when we got to the hill, I took my one walk break in the race around the halfway point, which allowed me to catch my breath, and then fumble with my t-shirt that was underneath the long-sleeved one and remove it. According to Mr GPS it added about a minute onto my time, so not bad at all. After that, I kept running it out, although looking at Armand’s splits he definitely picked up the pace big time once he was on his own. (Which he should have! He’s faster than me and even if I didn’t lose him on the hill, he needed to make that break before long.)

Nothing too big to report. One tiny calf twinge around mile 12.75, so it was great to not encounter those like last year. On the whole, much happier with this finish time. It’s not as good as some of my better halves but it’s closer to those finish times (1:58-2:01 range) than I’ve been in in the past for years. So that’s a great improvement.

Rock ‘N Roll USA Half Marathon
Start time: 3/16/13, 8:00am
Location: Washington DC
Distance: 13.1 miles
Finish Time: 2:13:34
Average pace: 10:12min/mile
Total Miles For March: 46 miles
Total Miles For 2013: 118 miles
Current Shoes: 17 miles

Another year, another March race. This is one where my training’s been a little haywire but I was still hoping for better. Unfortunately I started cramping around mile 8, which added with back pains around mile 1 and in retrospect I should be glad I finished. Nothing seemed to go quite right, unfortunately. Dressed too warmly and in layers that would be difficult to remove, coupled with (making a mistake I’ve done before) filling my water bottle with a sports drink that I then barely sipped because I’m not crazy about the taste. Between the two I might have dehydrated a little bit. Oops.

Bizarrely I ended up within seconds of the last time I ran this race, two years ago. And also one in which I wasn’t thrilled about. So I guess that’s… something? Maybe?

Anyway. I finished, that’s a victory, but there are a lot of lessons to be learned here that I’m still parsing.

National Half Marathon
Start time: 3/26/11, 7:00am
Location: Washington, DC
Distance: 13.1 miles
Finishing time: 2:13:27
Average pace: 10:11min/mile
Total Miles For March: 66 miles
Total Miles For 2011: 164 miles

Another spring, another half marathon… well, except this was the most “eh” half marathon I think I’ve run. I was never feeling it from start to finish, unfortunately. Just a lot of plodding along, wondering when it would be over, never quite having the drive (or speed) that I wanted. Considering I was some 11 minutes off of the last race of this distance I ran, it showed. My third worst, and the other two were the Disney Half Marathon (where I was saving a lot of energy for the full marathon the next day), and my very first half marathon back in 2003 when I weighed a hell of a lot more (and it was an hour slower). Oh well; everyone’s got a not-good race (or five) in them, and this was one of mine.

As for the race itself, well… I swear, each year this race finds something new to screw up. This year it involved mile marker signs that were mostly not set up (what are the odds that everyone missed them?), and the ones that were set up were incredibly small and also parallel to the street so you couldn’t see them until you were on top of them, if at all. Nicely done there. On the brighter side, this year the course went through Howard University instead of (at least back in 2009, the last time I ran this particular race) near the hospital, so that was a nice change of scenery. And I loved seeing Charlie, Cristina, and Brett along the way, plus getting to see Beth and Chris come up toward the finish line after I was done. And my friend Ben from my running group did really well, so that was an added bonus too.

Since my GPS said I ran 13.3 miles, I have no reliable splits for this race, so you don’t get them either.