posted Sep-04-2007 11:27 AM            

Goal time: 1:33 or better.
Chip time: 1:31:55 - A PR by ~12 minutes from last November.

My wife and I arrived on Friday late afternoon after the drive up from Charlotte, NC. We checked into the hotel and headed to the expo. If you have ever been to a "Rock n Roll" race, then you know the expo's are large, and have lots to tempt you with. We showed amazing restraint and walked out without spending a dime.

Bonus: Rick and Dean Hoyt were present! Both of us wanted to introduce ourselves, but after watching their story over the past few years, we weren't sure if we could keep our emotions in check. Simply amazing...no...admirable. Go Team Hoyt!

Saturday we walked about, shopped a bit, and generally relaxed. The wind was a steady 10-20 mph off the ocean. On race day we had temps in the high 60's at start with 10-15 mph steady winds. I'll take it after a silly hot late July and August in the southeast.

Sunday morning we were up at 4:30 a.m. We ate breakfast (Kashi cereal, a banana, and a slice of bread for me) got ready and walked about 1.5 miles to the start. Our hotel was less than a half mile from the finish, which worked out great.

Short warmup for me. I would have preferred another 10 minutes of easy running. My fault...huge races means everything takes a bit longer. Especially the bathrooms. Duh.

The corraled start is great. Although this one wasn't quite as spacious as Nashville, I have no complaints. I hope every large race starts to implement these.

The first 1.5 miles was a lot of dodging (If you are running a 9:00 pace, then move back a few corrals for crying out loud), weaving, and just trying to settle into a good pace without tripping over someone.

Mile 1: ~7:15. A bit slow, but that beats going out in 6:30.

5K split: 22:02 - 7:06 pace. At this point I'm feeling strong and just focusing on staying relaxed.

10K split: 44:00. - 7:04 pace. New 10K PR. Woohoo! For the past few miles, I was focusing on staying in the low 7's which was putting my HR around 175 to 180, depending on slope, wind, shade, etc.

My average HR was 178 for each mile 3 through 8. I wasn't running by HR, but if nothing else I was putting forth a consistent effort.

We passed a few more bands, cheerleading squads, etc. Always enjoyable and a bit of a lift.

10 Mile split: 1:10:46 - 7:04 pace. Again, I'm right on pace. I feel very good. I have to focus to maintain pace, but it's not a struggle. The crowd is great along this stretch, which was a good boost. We did hit some wind off the ocean here, but it wasn't terrible as we were shielded a fair amount by the hotels.

At this point I focused on trying to pick up the pace a bit. I only have a 5K left, I recall telling myself. After mile 11 we turned onto the boardwalk and headed south along the ocean. It was fairly warm in this stretch, and I tried not too look up as I knew the finish line was a ways down there. Just focus on pace and maintaining leg turnover.

Mile 11: 6:57 Avg. HR 182
Mile 12: 6:50 Avg. HR 186
Mile 13: 6:44 Avg. HR 189
.1: ~6:00 pace.

All in all I'm very happy with the race. I feel that I could have run around 1:31, or maybe a bit faster with a good taper. As it is, it was a great tune up race for my BQ attempt in 5 weeks. So far I'm on schedule.

The post race party included INXS on the beach, which was a good time. All in all it was a very fun weekend!

===========================================

For you heart rate folks...here is my Garmin data, unadjusted for distance, which was measured 13.21 miles. My normal training runs are done from 125 to 145. One speed workout a week.

Mile | Split | Avg. HR

1 7:09 169
2 6:52 180
3 7:01 176
4 7:02 178
5 7:00 178
6 7:05 178
7 7:04 178
8 7:04 178
9 6:57 180
10 6:57 181
11 6:54 182
12 6:47 186
13 6:41 189
.21 5:56 193

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posted Sep-04-2007 12:18 PM            

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posted Sep-04-2007 01:41 PM               

My previous Half Marathon PR, my only Half Marathon PR ,
is 1:33:21. I'm hoping to PR in February, and 1:31:55 would
be great!

Way to go on this record, and at such a great race to do it!

I race the same way you do--wait until the end to boost the
speed. I hope this is the way it goes for me. In fact, this
is probably a good example to go by for pacing myself on
race day...

------------------
tonya
My Log

First Marathon -
Omaha Marathon 09/23/07 -- Boston Marathon (Hopefully) 04/2008

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posted Sep-04-2007 01:59 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by tonya921:
Wow! You are an inspiration, and I'm not kidding.
This is exactly what I hope to do in the February AT&T Half
Marathon.

My previous Half Marathon PR, my only Half Marathon PR ,
is 1:33:21. I'm hoping to PR in February, and 1:31:55 would
be great!

Way to go on this record, and at such a great race to do it!

I race the same way you do--wait until the end to boost the
speed. I hope this is the way it goes for me. In fact, this
is probably a good example to go by for pacing myself on
race day...

---

Thanks Tonya! I just saw your last 5K time. Assuming your training is there, you should be under 1:33 without too many problems!

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posted Sep-04-2007 02:07 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Docster:
Thanks Tonya! I just saw your last 5K time. Assuming your training is there, you should be under 1:33 without too many problems!

---

I hope so...I'm running my first marathon in 19 days, hoping to
BQ on my first attempt. I don't plan on falling out of shape, so I'm gonna certainly try for close to that time!

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posted Sep-04-2007 08:06 PM            

Again, great race Docster!

------------------
David

"..because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope." - Romans 5:3

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posted Sep-06-2007 12:13 AM            

My wife and I, a friend and his wife all flew out from the west coast to run the event. This was our fourth Rock and Roll race this year. I hate to say it, but I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I am with the organization of this event.

The issues were everything from:

1. Runners (2 hours plus) having to pour their own water and later water stations were completely closed down. After the gel was given out the next station was all accelerade and no water to wash it down.

2. Initially, well past 1130 there were no buses to go to resort parking areas 33rd through 57th streets. Yet there were well over 30 to go to the Ampetheater. Race officials were directing runners to the wrong shuttle areas then rudely telling them to go back where they came from. Later, racers had to walk to parking areas miles away to avoid additional hotel charges. When buses finally showed up racers were told they couldn't get on the bus because they had started walking.

3. No photos were being taken, past the 2 hour mark.

4. The expo information booth seemed to have little knowledge of the area. Directing racers to parking areas 20 plus miles away from their hotels despite their being pick up areas within 5 miles.

For what it's worth: These things may seem petty to some and others may not have realized that these things occurred because they arrived at the finish early enough to avoid it or they were staying a short distance from the event. After spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on travel and entry fees for these events, I feel that we deserve better.

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posted Sep-06-2007 08:51 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nick the Marine:
First of all, congratulations on a great race! You'll qualify for Boston with no problem. This was my 1st half and I was only able to run a 1:36 (on the 13.21 mile course according to my Garmin as well.)

My wife and I, a friend and his wife all flew out from the west coast to run the event. This was our fourth Rock and Roll race this year. I hate to say it, but I can't begin to tell you how disappointed I am with the organization of this event.

The issues were everything from:

1. Runners (2 hours plus) having to pour their own water and later water stations were completely closed down. After the gel was given out the next station was all accelerade and no water to wash it down.

2. Initially, well past 1130 there were no buses to go to resort parking areas 33rd through 57th streets. Yet there were well over 30 to go to the Ampetheater. Race officials were directing runners to the wrong shuttle areas then rudely telling them to go back where they came from. Later, racers had to walk to parking areas miles away to avoid additional hotel charges. When buses finally showed up racers were told they couldn't get on the bus because they had started walking.

3. No photos were being taken, past the 2 hour mark.

4. The expo information booth seemed to have little knowledge of the area. Directing racers to parking areas 20 plus miles away from their hotels despite their being pick up areas within 5 miles.

For what it's worth: These things may seem petty to some and others may not have realized that these things occurred because they arrived at the finish early enough to avoid it or they were staying a short distance from the event. After spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on travel and entry fees for these events, I feel that we deserve better.

---

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Sorry to hear about your troubles. I did notice that on a few stations there didn't seem to be a lot of volunteers helping out. While this was fine for the number of people around me, certainly during "rush" hour they had to be struggling to keep up with demand.

We didn't have to deal with shuttles thankfully. I can say that the Nashville RnR Marathon seemed a bit more organized overall. (maybe prepared is a better word)

It's not like they didn't realize they had 20K+ runners, the vast majority of which will be running over 2 hours.

On another note, while it was of course a busy weekend, I was impressed with the beach overall. Very well maintained and such.

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