I ran my second half marathon today and hit the lowest weight I've been at since I was probably 12 years old (169.6 lbs, which is over 80 lbs lost since October 2005). Here's the race report I wrote at
dailymile.com if anyone is interested:
Run the Bluegrass Half-Marathon 13.1 mi, 01:51, 08:28 pace
Awesome race! Weather was perfect and the scenery was great. Definitely better than last year's washout. Speaking of last year, I took 26 minutes off my time and got under my two hour goal with plenty of cushion. My pace was only a few seconds slower than my target pace, which I thought was pretty ambitious beforehand.
Miles 1-3: It was crowded out of the gate and people were pushing some pretty good paces. I think I did a good job of reigning myself in and resisting the urge to run a faster pace than I could sustain.
Miles 4-6: More of the same. Tried to focus on taking short quick strides and conserving energy. Found some people running similar speeds to pace myself and draft when there was a headwind.
Miles 7-9: Got a bit of a side stitch around miles 6-7 so I slowed down and took some deep breaths. Got passed by several people, but found a surge near the turn around at Fasig Tipton and passed most of them back.
Miles 10-12: By far my best stretch. I stopped taking water after mile 10 because it took me out of my flow and it was tough to get restarted. Lots of runners were really hitting the wall here so I was steadily picking people off. Heard foot steps behind me so I kicked it up a notch heading into the campground and had my best split at mile 12.
Mile 13+: There were some tough hills in the last mile so I had to slow down a bit. I was passed by a couple people, but passed a few others so it was pretty much a wash. Spurred on by the crowd's encouragement I put what little I had left into a finish line dash.
All in all, I'm very proud of this performance: both as the culmination of the last three months of training and how I handled adversity in the race itself. I'm pretty beat up, and the side of my right foot is acting up like it did last year. Will probably need to take a week or two off to let it heal up but this race was definitely worth it. Can't wait for next year's edition!
My weight since I started training for this race:
