river run half marathon

You know it was a good race when I'm smiling at the end!

I had been eyeing this half marathon for a few months, knowing that my long run this weekend had to be something like 15 miles at goal marathon pace...but I decided to wait until closer to race day based on the weather situation. Turns out weather was looking perfect so I signed up!

The race course was a point to point course that was basically a gradual downhill (not like my Vegas race though where we lost a 1000 feet in the first two miles) through our metro parks system! It was mostly shaded and the weather really was perfect.

The race started at 8a and luckily parking was plentiful an hour before so one could stay warm in their car while waiting for the race to start.

It was a typical Cleveland race where it was a good amount of people but not too many where you had a surge of people to break through in the beginning.

Technically my goal time was the usual 1:49/1:50 since that is my goal marathon pace. But I tend to have these weird inklings about how races are going to go before they even start..and I knew this was going to be a fast one for me.  But not PR fast - I know better to not go all out for a half PR three weeks out from a marathon (if we were farther out though...) Factors in this "I'm gonna have a great race" thought process - my runs have been largely going very well, I feel very strong, not injured, the weather forecast, and the race course; only negative variable going against me was a decent head cold/upper respiratory congestion. I coughed every mile lol. 

For the first half I tried very very hard to hold back to an 8:00 pace (yes, that is faster than 1:49/1:50 half, my legs would not listen, and it felt rather effortless vs. intentional..)...which worked for the most part. The first half I ran in like...52:40.. I use like three running tracking websites for my Garmin data but none of them tell me what my first half official time was..but that's what it looks like. 

(Also best perk of this race, besides an awesome shirt, free HIGH QUALITY race pictures!!)

Then the second half, I was like hey, why not, let's speed it up and see what happens. I knew I was tracking for a sub 1:45 which I haven't run since like... Feb 2016. (Doing math during races makes it go by faster for those of us that stink at math) 

So I kicked it up a notch and ended up finishing with an official race course time of 1:44:52, but Garmin time of 1:43:30. Negative splits according to the Garmin and pretty even first half vs. second half split based on the course time. The difference between the two is because I overran the course...ended up with 13.27 miles. So of course I will use the official race time (if I didn't then I technically ran a 3:46 marathon too, but not counting that) and overall I felt awesome! Did not feel terribly sore the rest of the day or the days after. 

I also took a major risk of using this race as my first run in my new running shoes. Needless to say, they are wonderful :)

I think next year I will use this course as my half marathon PR course. I think I run my best half/halves when training for a marathon though!

Oh, and that pronation is still going strong as well as that game face, lol. Hey, whatever it takes to get 1:43/1:44 half marathons...