World Wide Half Marathon Challenge
Start time: 10/07/06, 8:00am
Location: Downtown Washington DC
Distance: 13.1 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Finishing time: 2:10:41
Average pace: 9:59min/mile
20-Miler
Start time: 10/07/06, 8:00am
Location: Downtown Washington DC
Distance: 20 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5:1
Average pace: 10:00min/mile
What a morning.
Today was my scheduled 20-mile training run for the Florence Marathon at the end of November… but it’s also the weekend of the World Wide Half Marathon Challenge, in which over 500 people around the world registered to run a “virtual” half marathon either today or tomorrow. No prizes, but we’ve all got race numbers, a results board, even a (PDF) goodie bag. Now, I wasn’t planning on try to beat my PR for a half marathon today (2:06:08) but I figured it was a fun thing to throw in there. After all, I’d be running the distance anyway.
The weather this morning was in some ways ideal—cool and cloudy. Only thing is, we start by the water. So what is cool elsewhere becomes downright frigid there, and we huddled up for warmth as much as possible. For the 20- and 23-milers, the Saturday and Sunday sites were merged into one so we started with a bunch of the other people from the 9:30 group… except we almost immediately split off into two groups, letting the speedies take off while me, grok, Emma, Katie, and newcomer David (who’s training for Marine Corps) stuck together. We had a good start, moving at a pretty solid pace, all the way until we hit the Capital Crescent Trail. That’s when it started raining.
No, make that pouring. Ugh. It’s bad enough when you’ve got three layers of shirt on to keep warm, but to then get drenched? Yuck, yuck, yuck. I’d say it probably rained for about an hour on us, probably from miles 6-11.5. When it stopped it was great… well, except then the fabric of our clothes began to get chillier. Brrrr. And yet, we pushed on. When we hit mile 13.1 I looked down at my watch and in a surprised tone of voice said, “That was less than five minutes from my PR.” This made me really happy, because we were moving at a good clip but I didn’t feel like we were actually racing. This bodes well for not only the marathon but future half marathons.
Tragically, we still had 6.9 more miles to go, but we stuck together strong (aside from dropping off Emma with about 2.75 miles to go; she’s running the Chicago Marathon in two weeks so 17 miles is all she really wanted/needed under her belt) and had a good finish. Well, aside from the blister on the bottom of my foot from when it was raining and I couldn’t see the massive puddle in front of me, which was deep enough that it went up to my ankle. Nothing like getting all that water and dirt and grit in-between your sock and foot. Oh well. Still, a really strong day, and huge props go out to the rest of my pace group who really kept me going and strong.
Now I better just not catch a cold!
(Oh, a tiny bit of a cramp in the left calf about a mile from the end. I think it was due to being tired and cold and wet more than anything else, but as always I’m logging it just in case.)
Half: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=448451
20-miler: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=448439