Carmel Half Marathon Recap

Glenn put a half marathon training plan together for me that I started up two weeks after the Shamrock marathon. It was a lot running (for me) for a half marathon. I was back to running around 45 miles a week again right away. 

I wasn’t really ready to start running 6 days a week and high mileage again. I had just trained pretty hard for a marathon and was really ready for a break. BUT, though I liked the idea of taking a break, I’m not good at taking breaks, I like to push myself and I like having a plan. 

After a week into the half marathon plan, I wanted to have something to shoot for but I didn’t want to run that many miles. So, I decided to train for a half Ironman. Glenn changed my plan to train for the Muncie Half Ironman in July, while still training for a half marathon. It’s a lot of working out, but less running, which is what I really needed a break from. I’m down to running only four days a week now. I know I could run a faster half marathon if I kept my focus on the half, but I just flat out don’t want to do that.

All this to say- my plan last Saturday called for 15 miles steady state. My steady state pace should be 7:00-7:30 pace. Realistically if I were our running this on my own, I’d probably do 7:20ish and 7:35ish if I had the stroller. 

Glenn had a bib for the Carmel full marathon because that’s where he had planned on tearing up his PR and running a hella fast 26.2. And, Back on My Feet runs the Carmel half every year, so I would be out there anyway, so I just decided to use Glenn’s bib and run the half as my 15 miles steady state workout. Yes, it’s two less miles and no I didn’t run steady state. What’s the fun in always following a plan so perfectly that you have no wiggle room for fun sometimes? Running a hard 13 sounded like a lot more fun if I did it in a race, opposed to on the monon by myself.

Glenn was poo pooing this whole idea because he thought I would race it and wouldn’t follow the plan. And the plan is not to race until my half- which is supposed to be mid May. He’s too much of a stickler sometimes. 

•  I have a really outdated half PR and if I can break it on a “training run race”, I want to. 

• Who cares if I run a half marathon twice in 4 weeks. You recover from a half marathon quick and it’s just completely different than recovering from a full

• My freaking goal race was Shamrock, it’s done, let me do what I want man.

Post race picture of my battle wounds.

Splits:

Mile 1- 6:51

Mile 2- 6:38 (the pace group went out a bit slow, so they were making up time on this mile… I don’t usually like hanging with pace groups because I like to do my own thing, but did hang with them on Saturday just for the beginning)

Mile 3- 6:48

Mile 4- 6:56

Mile 5- 6:58

Decision making time. My legs were tired here, like way too tired for being at mile 5. So I decided to slow down. I could have hung on with them for a few more miles, but it would have made for a scary, slothy ending. Bye Bye 1:30 pace group. I told myself- hey remember your aren’t really racing this? Even though part of me wanted to try to stick with them, I knew it wasn’t happening in the long run.

Mile 6- 7:17

Mile 7- 7:13

Right around here, I heard a girl coming up on me. Well really I saw her pony tail shadow. I always try to encourage other females who pass me or are around me and I said “good job girl” or something like that. She was friendly right back. Her husband was riding his bike next to her and she offered for him to carry my hat and gloves that I was carrying. Awesome… I was really sick of carrying them.

I let her go for a minute and then sped back up and told her I was going to try to hang with her for a bit. She said she was dying and would like that…. girlfriend kept pushing right along. She definitely helped me pick my pace back up these next two miles.

Mile 8- 7:04

Mile 9- 7:04

Mile 10- 7:34

Mile 11- 7:25

Two miles to go, I decided to finish up a little stronger. My legs had been tired since mile 4 really and that was my real problem but I didn’t want to keep slowing down. I pictured myself being at mile 24 of a full marathon and imagined how much worse I hurt at the end of most marathons and decided I should be able to run it in a little faster. Had I not picked it back up, I think I would have finished feeling like I just gave up. The only two miles I’m really not thrilled about are 10 and 11. I let myself slow down too much- I would be more satisfied if they were more like 7:15 pace. 

Mile 12- 7:02

Mile 13- 6:52 

Finish Time-  1:33:56

Place – 7th Female out of 792, 3rd in Age Group out of 117

And this is random, but does anyone else think it’s weird that the girl (who is obviously a badass & is actually a  pro triathlete) that was pacing the 1:30 group placed 4th? Not that it matters if I placed 6th or 7th, I just feel like since she was a pacer there to help the other athletes she shouldn’t place? If I would have been 4th and she 3rd, it would probably bother me, but beyond top 3 I don’t really care I suppose. Clearly she would have won the whole thing if she was actually racing.

At the finish, the friend that I met at mile 8 was hanging out and I got my gloves and hat from her husband. She ended up finishing in 3:33:05 I think. We chatted a bit and exchanged numbers. She’s ran a 3:21 full PR, wants to run sub 1:30 for a half, also likes to ride bikes. I think I perhaps found someone to run and ride with.

Anyway, even though my time was a PR, and I am happy with a PR…. the pace was literally only 3 seconds per mile faster than what I rolled through the half marathon mark at Shamrock.  I figured since I ran my half so quickly in the full, regardless of tired legs, the pace would feel a lot easier for 13.1. I would have probably been pissed if I ran it slower than my half time in the full. It was only 40 or so seconds total faster.
  
I knew I was running on tired legs– I had ran Rock the Relay (6 X 2.2 Mile Repeats) the previous Saturday, did a rough tempo on Wednesday, a hard spinning workout on Friday with lot’s of easyish stuff in between. There was nothing fresh about my legs.

During the race when my legs were feeling pretty blah, I kept thinking about how I really don’t want to race a half again soon, (but I will), I was also thinking about how if my legs felt so heavy during this half, they are probably really going to feel heavy in the half Ironman.

My breathing and the rest of my body felt pretty good , so I’m pretty sure if I’m having a good, not tired leg day, I can  keep that quicker pace for the entire 13.1. I’ll need a good week and a half taper probably and should be in good shape to break this time at Giest. (If I ever pull the trigger on registering!)

Another note about Carmel- for a a couple of weeks, during my Shamrock training, I almost decided to have Carmel be my full marathon instead of Shamrock, so we wouldn’t have to travel and spend money on the trip. But I decided I didn’t want to drag my training on that long, I wanted to get on with the damn thing.  I’m still glad I did this, but I can’t help but think how much faster I could have ran Carmel than I ran Shamrock. The weather was perfect, temps were cool but not too cool and wind was minimal. I feel like sans the wind, I could have shaved a good 3 minutes off my time. Maybe I would have been burnt out, but it’s likely I would have been more powerful with a few extra weeks of training. You can’t dwell on stuff like that though. So I’ll stop thinking about it now that I’ve typed it out right?

Some other great things about today– all of the Back on My Feet accomplishments, lot’s of guys who ran their first half marathon today, all of the amazing Back on My Feet supporters who worked water stops on our behalf. So many people stepped up and helped out and I am thankful for every single person who did.

I also met one of my twitter friends, Josh @jbakeindy- who had a goal of running sub 1:50 and ran a 1:46. I’d say that’s success. He’s a big trail runner and ran a trail marathon just for fun the previous weekend. Just a hunch, but I bet he’d destroy that 1:46 on fresh legs…..

With my twitter friend-  JBakeIndy

With BoMF Member Leon- who ran his 3rd or 4th half marathon. He’s an old pro at it by now.

Some of the BoMF crew after the race, waiting on a few of more Members to finish.

On to some more triathlon training this week and the next half will be here soon. This past week was a light week because I was super busy with my last big week at work.