Time for my last race before Houston - the City of Angeles Half Marathon! I was hoping to beat my performance in SB - here’s my brief wrap up.
Early morning...5:00am, ate some cereal, out the door by 5:30. Parked at the LA Music Cent
er downtown, and was on the shuttle bus to Griffith Park by 5:45 am. Sleepy. Arrived at the zoo a little after 6:00....almost an hour and a half till race start - bummer! Got my bib, ran into my good friend Kai from the trail runner’s club. Started the race in the first wave - the 5:00-9:00 group. Why not? Kept good pace, but really needed to pee by mile 2 - so I had to spend 30 or so seconds in a porta-potty. I was pretty pleased with my splits early on, and was worried about the hills impacting this, but I just shortened my stride, chugged up at about 10:00-10:30 pace and made it up on the downhill.
I started to get pretty tired around mile 10, but with just 3
miles to go knew I had to keep it going! On a steep hill at around 10.5 I actually walked for a few strides - not good! Immediately got dizzy, so resumed running, slowly. Good choice.
After mile 12 I really had no idea where I was at with my goal. My goal for Houston is “officially” 4:30, but I’d really like to go for 4:20 if possible. For that to happen, based on the McMillian calculator I’d need to pull a 2:03 half. Now that’s averaging about 9:30/mile for 13 miles - pretty ambitious for me honestly. I did know I was somewhat within that range, but the last half mile or so was in a tunnel! So I had no GPS to tell me where I was at. I did smell blood and really put the pedal to the metal that last stretch.
I passed dozens of people in the tunnel and crossed my fingers the finish line was real close at the “light at the end.” It was a few hundred yards around the corner, I again sped up as fast as I could - I saw the clock had just ticked 2:03 so I knew I was right in the pocket! Crossing the line was great - I made it a point to make funny faces for all the photographers. Stay tuned for those.
When I looked down at my Garmin I realized I had met my goal with near perfection. Crazy - it read 2:02:59. I was biting my nails waiting for the official results and was pleased that I was even a second quicker. Took a nice long nap upon arrival at home....Next stop Houston. Then I think I’ll try and break 2 hrs in a half early next year!
Here’s some boring technical data...
Official Time: 2:02:58 (pace average = 9:28/mile, HR average = 172)
Mile 1: 9:08 (HR = 152)
Mile 2: 9:38 (HR = 160)
Mile 3: 9:22 (HR = 166)
Mile 4: 9:19 (HR = 171)
Mile 5: 9:16 (HR = 172)
Mile 6: 9:44 (HR = 174)
Mile 7: 9:44 (HR = 176)
Mile 8: 9:23 (HR = 177)
Mile 9: 9:00 (HR = 175)
Mile 10: 9:46 (HR = 180)
Mile 11: 9:27 (HR = 178)
Mile 12: 9:31 (HR = 180)
Mile 13: 9:32 (HR = 186)
End HR = 194 (!)
Oh...
1st half: 1:01:19
2nd half: 1:01:32
