towpath half.

while looking for information on another race i'd like to do, i came across a half marathon that was days away!

i let the thought of this race sit in my head (i found the race exactly a week before it was to be held), and after a few days of thinking, i decided to do it!

i knew i needed to do a long run, which wasn't needed to be 13.1 miles, more like 8, 9, or 10, but i figured, why not. after a few good runs during the week, i felt like i could try it.

since running the princess half, i ran a couple long runs....a 7 and 8 miler, as well as some shorter distances. so my goal for this was to take it as a training long run, that cost money, but you get a medal at the end! who doesn't want a medal at the end of a training run.

my goal was to pace myself around 9:50 per mile if i felt ok with it. the big goal was to just have a good, decent long run. i admit the inkling of trying to pr with that pace was in a tiny corner of my mind, but not one to try and get done.

race day came, i drove myself to the site, and realized my garmin didn't work. pacing myself went out the window with that. so i had to wing it, and told myself, just go by how you feel, it is a long run, not the race to pr (personal record).

it was a nice race, all on a trail, and i had absolutely no clue how i was pacing, but i felt like maybe i was in the area i needed/wanted to be pace wise. there were no digital mile markers to give me any idea of even what time i was hitting each mile. i could tell i had a decent pace, and tried to keep it up, just to see how i would do.

running without the garmin was annoying, good, and hard all at the same time. it was nice to not look down every so often to see where i was pacing, but i was dying to know at least where i was at certain mile points (like 5k, 10k, etc.), and the second half of the race i was dying to know. i also sometimes just wanted to know where i was on mileage because sometimes i thought i was never going to see the next marker....i swear the miles felt longer. i definitely felt it the second half, and it felt like i had been out there for 3 hours at at least. the hardest parts of this race were the uphill climb around mile 12.5 to the finish. that was hard. the other hard part, was almost more mental, but they had us doing a loop twice. so as i ran toward mile 7 and saw the 11 mile marker, and toward mile 9 as i saw the 12 mile marker, that was hard. it's hard to run past the miles you have not even run yet!

as i got to the finish, i was ITCHING to know the time. at that point, i would have been happy with any finish time, as i was really pushing myself by then.....even though it was a "long run", my competitiveness came out.

throughout the race, i did have a number in my head. 2:12:50. that's my finish time from the half marathon in myrtle beach, and my best one to date.

til now.

as i came near the finish i finally saw the clock. it said 2:10:11! i was going to pr!! the clock time was a pr, and i knew my time would be at least 30 seconds better, as i started the race at the way back of the pack and crossed the start after the clock started, so i figured i had at least 30 seconds or more of a cushion on that clock. i nearly started crying, just as i crossed that finish line, i stomped my foot on that mat as if to say "pr!!!", and was handed my medal.

and pr i did! my official (chip time) was 2:09:12.

not bad for a "training" run.

average pace: 9:51. pretty much right where i wanted it. (!!)