Cap City 1/2 Marathon, I finally broke 1:30!!
April 29th, 2017 time for my favorite half marathon again! And for the 4th time I was also accompanied by my friend and fellow barefoot runner @Yvonne. I've done it a couple prior years just myself, and several times doing the 5k before I was a barefoot runner. I've been attending this one more than any other over the years. Always such a great party after! More on that one later...
This year the weather did not look good. It's always a mixed bag this time of year. Weather showed a good chance of rain, possible thunderstorms, wind, and warmish temps for this time of year (60's F). Not what I was hoping for at all! Thought the hourly showed a lesser chance around daybreak. Besides weather, I also wasn't in that great of shape myself... I didn't really carb load much other than eat and extra couple pieces of fruit the previous day and that morning, maybe drank one more cup of tea than usual and completely forgot to drink any water at all race morning (okay, so sometimes I am easily distracted / completely absent minded) all I had liquid wise was grabbing one cup of Tim Hortons coffee on the way down. Training... was a mixed bag. It always slacks off in winter/early spring. I just call it Maffetone training . I had a few setbacks that prevented me from doing speed workouts, but eventually I did get a few in over 4-6 weeks time but literally just a few. I had been feeling really good the last couple months, high mileage weeks felt great and when I did some speed workout I felt great. Just need more consistency, something I'll probably not be able to achieve until I retire from rotating shiftwork job, not to mention sitting 12hrs straight on the job. We both had also done a half marathon the prior weekend, and I'm not used to back to back races and was actually still a little sore.
Dreary view from the office race morning
Another shot of downtown from my building
So race morning Yvonne and I made it downtown. I went into work and talked with my fellow shiftmates working that day, stayed dry indoors for a bit, loosened up and stretched out a little. There was a window in the weather, everything was wet but the rain had stopped. Yvonne and I made our way to the A corral. First time she got A! By the time we got there though it was packed! We were in the line waiting to get into the corral when the race started.
Elite runners head out first
This race also hosted the U.S. 1/2 marathon championship and those runners got the first start, ahead of the A corral.
At the race start
Yvonne and I heading out together for a bit
We hung together for a oh maybe a quarter mile to a half mile maybe? Starting way in the back of A there was actually a bit of a crowd that was hard to get through. But I'm ok doing a bit of a gradual warmup the first bit. As soon as I had a good clearing though I let loose! Couldn't believe how many folks I passed even though for the first time since Yvonne and I had been running we started in A.
According to the stats at the 5 mile sensor I passed nearly two thousand runners, and wasn't passed by anyone! I remember a few passing me once I got up to the 8-10 mile range, I was really struggling holding speed at that point, but either the stats aren't that accurate or I may have passed some of them back again because it only shows I was passed by 2 the whole race.
I was hot, should have went sleevelss. I was thirsty, but hate drinking while racing so hard. I think I took 3 swigs of water the whole way, the second upset my tummy even though it was only about 1/4 or less of the little cup. I held off on the third swig until later in the race.
It started to sprinkle about half way through, and then turned to light rain a couple miles from the finish. It actually felt good to me at that point. Garmin had my first mile over 7 minutes, my slowest one from starting out in the crowd. 2 mile avg was 6:55, and crossing the 5k point in 21:20. First 5 miles I had settled in around 6:48, and garmin bounced around the 6:40s and 50's for the remainder of the race with the exception of some of the inclines right in the last mile or two I went up into the low 7's. I was getting pretty burnt out after the 10 mile mark, the legs were starting to feel like mush and my lungs were right on the verge of cramping, but I held right there and things didn't seem to get any worse. I picked it up a little just the last half mile, it was so hard to do with the bit of hills just prior. I put on a strong finish kicking it into the finish line but didn't try and kill myself out sprinting one fellow next to me that decided to go all out at the end.
Approaching the finish line, soaked and exhausted!
Kicking it in to finish!
Happy its over and I can still put on a smile!
After I finished I did an easy jog to my car and back (1.25 mi), hoping to grab some rain gear and still make it back to see Yvonne finish. It had started to rain a bit harder towards the end of the race. Actually on my way back it was starting to come down pretty good, I should have got something more than just a waterproof hat. When I got back I met her in the recovery area. She said they had shut the course down and cut out some of the extra loops and directing all runners back to the finish line in the shortest route. She actually got a mile cut out of her race, and others further back got several miles cut out. It really skewed all the results, since they did cross the line and the stats counted it for the full 13.1 when it was not. Eventually they separated out those who got caught after the cutoff, but I'm not sure how accurate that was. In any case I ran the full course and mine were valid. Unfortunately Yvonne got caught in that mess (just barely!). To rub a little salt in her wounds too, we were standing in line for our one free Patrón Margarita and they shut the party down! No free drinks this time. Actually they sent us to shelter, lightning was starting to get very close! It turned into a torrential downpour. I feel so bad for runners that might have still been out, and volunteers that gave their time to help out just to get soaked and probably deal with angry runners. It was a bit of a disaster with so many thousands of people involved. We waited the storm out in an underground garage for an hour or two it seemed until finally heading back to our cars and home. I actually had to work a nightshift that night! Couldn't get out of it. Up for 28 hours!
Apparently some of the slower folks got so much of a cut that they actually beat me time wise. After they separated those folks out my placings went up! Out of the official finishers my overall place decreased to 64th and division place decreased to 14th! I'm still not sure if that is very accurate but it sounds good for such a big and competitive race.
Now I'd like to see what I can do under better conditions! Maybe later this year! My next-fastest 1/2 was Cap City last year, 1:34:48 so this was over a 5 minute jump!
This year the weather did not look good. It's always a mixed bag this time of year. Weather showed a good chance of rain, possible thunderstorms, wind, and warmish temps for this time of year (60's F). Not what I was hoping for at all! Thought the hourly showed a lesser chance around daybreak. Besides weather, I also wasn't in that great of shape myself... I didn't really carb load much other than eat and extra couple pieces of fruit the previous day and that morning, maybe drank one more cup of tea than usual and completely forgot to drink any water at all race morning (okay, so sometimes I am easily distracted / completely absent minded) all I had liquid wise was grabbing one cup of Tim Hortons coffee on the way down. Training... was a mixed bag. It always slacks off in winter/early spring. I just call it Maffetone training . I had a few setbacks that prevented me from doing speed workouts, but eventually I did get a few in over 4-6 weeks time but literally just a few. I had been feeling really good the last couple months, high mileage weeks felt great and when I did some speed workout I felt great. Just need more consistency, something I'll probably not be able to achieve until I retire from rotating shiftwork job, not to mention sitting 12hrs straight on the job. We both had also done a half marathon the prior weekend, and I'm not used to back to back races and was actually still a little sore.
Another shot of downtown from my building
So race morning Yvonne and I made it downtown. I went into work and talked with my fellow shiftmates working that day, stayed dry indoors for a bit, loosened up and stretched out a little. There was a window in the weather, everything was wet but the rain had stopped. Yvonne and I made our way to the A corral. First time she got A! By the time we got there though it was packed! We were in the line waiting to get into the corral when the race started.
Elite runners head out first
This race also hosted the U.S. 1/2 marathon championship and those runners got the first start, ahead of the A corral.
At the race start
Yvonne and I heading out together for a bit
We hung together for a oh maybe a quarter mile to a half mile maybe? Starting way in the back of A there was actually a bit of a crowd that was hard to get through. But I'm ok doing a bit of a gradual warmup the first bit. As soon as I had a good clearing though I let loose! Couldn't believe how many folks I passed even though for the first time since Yvonne and I had been running we started in A.
According to the stats at the 5 mile sensor I passed nearly two thousand runners, and wasn't passed by anyone! I remember a few passing me once I got up to the 8-10 mile range, I was really struggling holding speed at that point, but either the stats aren't that accurate or I may have passed some of them back again because it only shows I was passed by 2 the whole race.
I was hot, should have went sleevelss. I was thirsty, but hate drinking while racing so hard. I think I took 3 swigs of water the whole way, the second upset my tummy even though it was only about 1/4 or less of the little cup. I held off on the third swig until later in the race.
It started to sprinkle about half way through, and then turned to light rain a couple miles from the finish. It actually felt good to me at that point. Garmin had my first mile over 7 minutes, my slowest one from starting out in the crowd. 2 mile avg was 6:55, and crossing the 5k point in 21:20. First 5 miles I had settled in around 6:48, and garmin bounced around the 6:40s and 50's for the remainder of the race with the exception of some of the inclines right in the last mile or two I went up into the low 7's. I was getting pretty burnt out after the 10 mile mark, the legs were starting to feel like mush and my lungs were right on the verge of cramping, but I held right there and things didn't seem to get any worse. I picked it up a little just the last half mile, it was so hard to do with the bit of hills just prior. I put on a strong finish kicking it into the finish line but didn't try and kill myself out sprinting one fellow next to me that decided to go all out at the end.
Approaching the finish line, soaked and exhausted!
Kicking it in to finish!
After I finished I did an easy jog to my car and back (1.25 mi), hoping to grab some rain gear and still make it back to see Yvonne finish. It had started to rain a bit harder towards the end of the race. Actually on my way back it was starting to come down pretty good, I should have got something more than just a waterproof hat. When I got back I met her in the recovery area. She said they had shut the course down and cut out some of the extra loops and directing all runners back to the finish line in the shortest route. She actually got a mile cut out of her race, and others further back got several miles cut out. It really skewed all the results, since they did cross the line and the stats counted it for the full 13.1 when it was not. Eventually they separated out those who got caught after the cutoff, but I'm not sure how accurate that was. In any case I ran the full course and mine were valid. Unfortunately Yvonne got caught in that mess (just barely!). To rub a little salt in her wounds too, we were standing in line for our one free Patrón Margarita and they shut the party down! No free drinks this time. Actually they sent us to shelter, lightning was starting to get very close! It turned into a torrential downpour. I feel so bad for runners that might have still been out, and volunteers that gave their time to help out just to get soaked and probably deal with angry runners. It was a bit of a disaster with so many thousands of people involved. We waited the storm out in an underground garage for an hour or two it seemed until finally heading back to our cars and home. I actually had to work a nightshift that night! Couldn't get out of it. Up for 28 hours!
Apparently some of the slower folks got so much of a cut that they actually beat me time wise. After they separated those folks out my placings went up! Out of the official finishers my overall place decreased to 64th and division place decreased to 14th! I'm still not sure if that is very accurate but it sounds good for such a big and competitive race.
Now I'd like to see what I can do under better conditions! Maybe later this year! My next-fastest 1/2 was Cap City last year, 1:34:48 so this was over a 5 minute jump!