Race information

• What? 2016 DRC Half
• When? 11/6/16
• How far? 13.1 miles
• Website? http://drchalf.com
• Strava

Goals

Training

After April’s HM, I decided to take the Pfitzinger plunge for the 2016 Dallas Running Club Half Marathon. Uncle Pete, as he’s fondly known to his disciples, has such a good reputation with my usual running folks, and I figured I could probably handle it. So I spent all of April dawdling around and making bad training decisions (like trying to run six miles a day every day for a month) and injuring myself. I got shin splints and my calves got so tight that my Achilles started hurting. When I finally recovered from that (after a painful month on the treadmill) I started base building from 23 miles up to 42.

After a successful buildup, I started in on the 12/47 plan. I ended up running a couple of extra miles every week and peaked at 50 miles. I hit all of my workouts and didn’t skip a run until the last night before the race when I stayed too late at a friend’s house playing with the HTC Vive and ran out of time to do a shakeout.

Pre-race

I got up at 4:30 for my 7:30 race to let my lungs wake up. I ran for about 15 minutes at a painfully easy pace, then came in and ate a Picky Bar and showered. For the first time ever, Ben was able to make it to a goal race for me, and we left the house at 6:30. I was a little short on time when we got to the race and only did a mile to warm up, but threw a couple of strides in there at least. I got out of my warmups and checked my bag and used a secret hidden portapotty that didn’t have a line and then lined up at about 7:20 with the 1:45 pacers. I asked if they were planning on doing even splits and they said they were. The anthem played, the eagles cried, and the gun went off.

Race strategy

A short word about strategy: I had planned on leaving with the 1:45 guys no matter what. If I was feeling spectacular at 8 miles (no niggles, HR still low), I’d head off on my own and shoot for 1:40. If I felt good at 10 miles, I would head out on my own then and shoot for 1:43. If I felt crappy, I’d go out at 11 and die trying to finish as fast as possible.

Miles [1] to [8] (7:42, 7:41, 7:47, 8:02, 7:55, 7:50, 8:05, 8:01)

So when the pacer said he was planning on running even splits, he lied. Even splits for a 1:45 finish are 8:00 on the nose, and 7:55 to take tangents into account, maybe. Their plan was really to bank time in the flat sections and ease off a little in the hills, of which there were way more than I remembered. None were really awful, but I was glad I had to run up a big hill every morning to get home from my runs or else I’d really have been screwed. After the first hill, my HR shot into the low-to-mid 170s and stayed there for most of the race. It was slightly alarming at first, but I ended up settling in somewhere in the second mile and getting used to the exertion level.

One of our two pacers was really chatty and funny. He’d sing songs and banter with the spectators or the people running by that weren’t racing. He told us when the hills were coming and generally distracted us from the race. If there’s one thing you can say about the DRC, it’s that their pace groups are awesome. They’re everything you want a pacer to be, and nothing more. They’ll usually get you in right underneath the goal time and help people that are struggling.

After three miles, we got out of the houses and got some breeze, which cooled us down. I think there was a water stop every mile and a half. I skipped the first one, got water at the second one and choked, got a stitch that resolved by the third one where I dumped the cup on my head. I got water again at the fourth one and Gatorade that was way too strong at the fifth one.

There was a great crowd at a turn near the sixth mile. I remember that same crowd from the first time I ran this race in 2014 and just like that race, I nearly teared up thinking that these people got up early on a Sunday just to be loud and excited for the people that were causing roads to be shut down by their houses. The crowd support at this race is pretty low on the whole, but the people that do show up are truly awesome.

Miles [9] to [11.5] (9 – 8:07, 10 – 7:50)

So we had a solid hill at mile 8 that sort of stuck with me for the rest of the race. My quads were a little busted and my legs felt a little dead. I definitely wasn’t leaving the pacers yet. Mile 9 was the slowest in the whole race. I think everyone was slowing and trying to find their second wind while battling the real wind coming off of the lake. It was in the low-ish 60s and overcast the whole race. Not as cool as I’d hoped, but not as warm as it had been all week. During this part of the race, we were on the lake battling other people who weren’t racing (or paying much attention to their surroundings) so that didn’t help either. There were a couple of water stations. One of them had Rick Astley playing, complete with lyrics and signs at the end of the area that said “U Just Got Rick Rolled!”

At the second water stop, the pacers slowed down to get drinks and I just kind of kept going. We had met up with a woman that the pacer knew and that had started right in front of us, but was just running it for fun. They had been talking for about a mile, and when I started leaving them behind, she yelled to the pacers, “Hey, she’s leaving you in the dust!” The talkative pacer said “yeah, she ought to be, she’s been hanging with us for 12 miles!”

Miles [11.5] to [13.1] (11 – 7:50, 12 – 7:50, 13 – 6:59, 13.1 – 1:42/6:43)

Well that woman ran up to me and asked what my goal was and I said “1:43, but I think that ship has sailed.” She immediately picked up the pace and told me she’d get me there. So we picked up to just barely under a 7:00 pace and she started just coaching me through the last little bit. She emphasized breathing deeply and just kept picking targets for us to reel in. With about a half mile to go, my left hamstring started getting tight, in addition to my legs feeling leaden already. If I had been on my own, I probably would have eased off, but my new pacer told me to just keep focusing on my breathing and on continuing to pass people. With 100 ft to go, I saw my mom and Ben, which was pretty great. We crossed the line in 1:43:08, hands firmly in the moose position, and my head promptly exploded.

Post-race

I met up with my mom and my husband, and tried to catch my breath. I thanked my impromptu pacer and my official pacers. For some reason, my right ear had gotten like they do in airplanes and I couldn’t get it to pop for the life of me. We did pictures and I got a Sonic breakfast burrito and donut holes and red velvet cupcake but as soon as I smelled the sweetness, I felt sick, so Ben got the sweet stuff. One of my friends running the race came in in 1:51, and informed us that they had computers where you could check your results, so we went over there to see my official time and learned that all of the fast 25-29 year old women in Dallas had decided to run NYC or were saving their legs for the Dallas Marathon next month, because I had won my age group. My mom and Ben had to leave before the awards ceremony (which, as usual, started half an hour late) but my friend stayed and took a picture for me.

What’s next/Random Thoughts

IDK, man. I never really expected to go under 1:40, but I did think 1:43 was achievable, and that’s still a 14 minute PR over April. It’s a 31 minute PR over 2014 when I ran this race the first time. My half PR was 2:14 coming into 2016, and I was just coming back from a stress fracture. It’s November, and I’ve run 1300 miles this year, cut all of my PRs down by a significant margin, and more than anything was able to train consistently because I avoided major injury by not being stupid.

I have a couple of fun 5ks coming up in December and January. I’ll probably go for PRs and AG wins (maybe overall female win for the January one, based off of last year’s results…) I’d like to do a short cycle of 5k work to hone in on some speed gains to complement my endurance gains from the HM plan before starting another half plan for the spring. No goal race decided for that. I’m up for suggestions for whether I should either run the 12/47 again, add some mileage and run it again, or try to step up to the next plan for the spring.

Finally, as much as I complain about people, I felt really good about humans on the whole after the race. Those people didn’t need to come out and cheer for us, but they did. The pacers are volunteers, and yet, instead of PRing, they decided to get up and pace us to a finish. And the woman that paced me at the end was a straight up angel. She had done a 30 mile bike ride the day before (triathletes, am I right?) and instead of just letting me go off on my own and perhaps blow up, she pushed the pace when she probably didn’t particularly feel like it and helped me achieve my goal. Seriously.

Pictures