Race Report: Heritage Half Marathon

Sometimes, you feel totally prepared to race and rock out to the tune of an amazing time. Other times, it just doesn't work out. Fortunately, this was not one of those other days. I haven't posted much recently, but I've been training pretty hard over these past months. Specifically, I've been training with the great community of people at Marathon Nation. But I was just training to "get faster", without specific focus. It wasn't until about 2.5 months ago though, that I was actually training for an actual race. I figured I'd be running a handful of fall races and when an opportunity arose to get in on a half marathon, I stepped up to the plate and dialed in my focus.


Race morning was nice, cool and in the mid 40s...perfect for running! After a brief warm up, it came time to quickly line up for the start. I seeded myself about 2 rows back from the front, seeing as how some top area talent came out for the race. Before I knew it, we were off!

Miles 1-3
The pacing plan was to go conservative for the early miles, where my goal was to average 7:22/mile. I knew mile 1 would be fast, due to the adrenaline and a mostly downhill mile. At my first glance down at my watch, I noticed I was running 6:35/mile pace - oops! I quickly slowed and really held myself back, knowing it would pay off later in the race. Here were my paces:

Mile Planned Actual

1 7:10 7:08

2 7:25 7:24

3 7:25 7:24

Miles 4-10
Now it was time to get to work...well sort of. Though a tradition pacing plan would have me working hard at Mile 4, it was almost entirely up hill. So while I was working harder, I knew I wasn't going to throw down too fast of a pace. I slowly began picking it up by effort, which resulted in slightly faster paces, but I was feeling really good. After Mile 4, I started picking people off that had passed me in the early miles. I felt totally smooth and in control.

Mile Planned Actual

4 7:15 7:17

5 7:05 7:06

6 7:05 6:58

7 7:15 7:08

8 7:00 6:56

9 7:00 6:54

10 7:00 6:44

Only thing was, I hadn't seen a runner in front of me since Mile 8! If it weren't for the great support at the aid stations, it would have been pretty lonely out there.

Miles 11-13.1
I knew with just a 5k to go, the Mile 11 was largely downhill, but the last 2 miles were the steepest uphills on the whole course - what a way to end a race!

Mile Planned Actual

11 7:00 6:49

12 7:00 6:51

13.1 7:00 6:51

Overall time: 1:31:35
Avg pace: 7:00/mile
Avg HR: 167 bpm

Comments: I ended up getting 2nd in my age group! I couldn't have felt better during the race, despite the hills toward the end in the last 2 miles. Even more notable, was that I also set a new 10 mile PR WITHIN the race (1:09:34) over the course of the last 10 miles of the race.