It took me 2 years to break two hours for a half. I was stuck at 2:02 times for quite sometime. And on certain hot/humid conditions it went further downhill to 2:20ish. But I'm glad to report it finally happened last weekend at the Adirondacks half marathon in upstate NY. My official time was 1:54:59. I ran at a comfortable aerobic pace for first 5 miles. Then I pushed slightly for the next 5 miles. Last three miles I picked up my pace and was passing folks and got most of them who had left me in the dust at mile 2.My pace for the first 10 miles hovered between 8.5-9 min/mile. My 11th mile was a bit slower at 9 min/mile even though it felt like I was pushing at that point. I looked up the map and there was a long stretch of uphill at that mile. 12th mile stretch got flatter and my pace improved to 8.25 min/mile. 13th was the faster to 8.05 min/mile. And I ran like hell in the last 0.2 miles at under 6 min/mile. Reward was a 7 minute PR. Best part was this happened during peak part of my marathon training.
I went into the race pretty much beaten up with track and tempo workouts earlier in the week. And the weather didn't help at all. It was hot and humid at around 85 degrees. I stuck to my plan of going at comfortable pace for most of the race by constantly reminding me I need to treat it like a training run and not a race. It really feels great to get this monkey off the back. Course was super scenic and with long stretches of rolling hills. Adirondacks in fall season is absolutely stunning. Finish line was infront of Lake Schroon and I stood in waist deep water after the race for good 30 minutes. Post race food and drinks were awesome. One of the best organized races I've run so far.
I'm focusing all my energy to get through the remaining 4 weeks of training hoping to get to starting line of NYC marathon on Nov 2nd. My base building started 10 months ago and have been following a very balanced training with 4 running days, strength training on 2 days and cross training on 2 days (spinning and swim). So far my legs are holding up. Focusing on one workout at a time without setting any expectations whatsoever.
I went into the race pretty much beaten up with track and tempo workouts earlier in the week. And the weather didn't help at all. It was hot and humid at around 85 degrees. I stuck to my plan of going at comfortable pace for most of the race by constantly reminding me I need to treat it like a training run and not a race. It really feels great to get this monkey off the back. Course was super scenic and with long stretches of rolling hills. Adirondacks in fall season is absolutely stunning. Finish line was infront of Lake Schroon and I stood in waist deep water after the race for good 30 minutes. Post race food and drinks were awesome. One of the best organized races I've run so far.
I'm focusing all my energy to get through the remaining 4 weeks of training hoping to get to starting line of NYC marathon on Nov 2nd. My base building started 10 months ago and have been following a very balanced training with 4 running days, strength training on 2 days and cross training on 2 days (spinning and swim). So far my legs are holding up. Focusing on one workout at a time without setting any expectations whatsoever.
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