Gasparilla Distance Classic: Half Marathon

[digitaldiscipline]

1:56:44 (8:55 / mi) | 1333 overall (6550 finishers) | 171 in group (M, 35-39) | I hit the wall HARD around mile 10, so I ended up about :10-15/mi slower than my hoped-for pace.

Called my folks afterward to catch up and whatnot.

Me: One fifty-seven.
Dad*: What did you do, walk?

For all my bitching about the 6:00 start time, it was gorgeous until the sun came up, at which point, it got hot (but the breeze remained).

Despite an absolutely packed starting chute (due, I suspect, to the lack of the full marathon from this year's slate of events), I kept my 8:40-8:50 pace pretty consistent until around mile 8, when it started to get warm, the pavement got worse, and last night's dinner and this morning's orange and coffee wore off. Knowing that others didn't stop running until at least mile 9, I was going to be damned if I was, either. Helpfully, Cee-Lo Green's "F You" came on to provide entertaining motivation, but... yeah, I had to stop and walk a handful of times in the last 6k.

I think there were probably an equal number of official race photos of me paying attention (grinning, throwing the horns \m/ \m/ ) and... not. I'm not sure if gritty, sweaty determination is a good look for me.

Two goals met: sub-2:00, no puking; I failed on the "no walkies" thing.




* Dad's marathon PR is 3:02; I told you I come by this foolishness honestly *and* genetically.

Comments

[merrychristen.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you kicked some major ass to me!

[david-deacon.livejournal.com]

Me: One fifty-seven.
Dad: What did you do, walk?

Gee, what a "sweet" old man. How supportive of him.

[anarcha.livejournal.com]

And...what was you father lifting at the time? And did he race a 5K the day before, and then lift?

Reminds me of a friend's mother who qualified for the women's olympic marathon trials -- mother insists that any of us can run that time "you just need to pick up your knees more when you run". Um... right.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Dad has never been the skinny dude I was when I ran cross country (he was a cheerleader in college, and did time in the Army); he had thickness through the upper body and enough strength to do couch moving and home project stuff (though we only had a very small weight bench, which didn't get much use). He was, IIRC, a fairly dense 145 at the time.

So, yes, it *is* kind of apples and oranges; I half-assed my training mileage and compromised it with lifting, which is why I had no illusions about how fast I was apt to be, either in relative or absolute terms. :-)

(I feel compelled to point out that he was also over 45 when he ran that at the Marine Corps Marathon, sometime in the mid-80's or so; I forget which year it was, exactly. Interestingly, Google turned up a link with a pile of his 8k times from that era: he was between 31:30 (Thanksgiving, 1984) and 35:30 (week before St. Patty's Day, 1987) in every race from 1982 to 1988 (which would be 44-50), with a 37:30 in 1991.

He is, however, on board with my half-assed plan to do a marathon sometime around my 40th birthday (the year after next). I think something between 3:30 and 3:59 should be eminently doable. :-)

[ivy]

I am sure that your race time beat my race time. (Sorry that you hit the wall. It sucks when that happens.) Ugh, 6 AM. Hooray for Cee-Lo Green, though. [grin] I had that song on the radio last night, and it cheered me up.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

for as unpleasant as getting up at 0400 was, the weather was perfect when the race started; after the sun had been up a while, it got hot and unpleasant, which didn't help.

i figured you'd appreciate the CLG bit, even if it may have been aimed at your spectre. ;-)