Sam Costa Half Marathon 2015 recap

I love this race. I ran the quarter-marathon last year and it's just a really great race. It's the oldest half-marathon in Indiana and has a lot of history. It's also got a great venue with lots of bathrooms and a coffee shop and it's got about a bajillion volunteers with 2-5 at every turn (there are A LOT of turns, it's a very twisty race) to make sure you stay on course and to cheer you on.

 Since I'm neck-deep in marathon training, I hadn't paid much attention to this race and was mostly looking at it as a break in my higher mileage long runs. After a month of strong running, I aggravated an old injury on the Thursday before the race and wasn't sure about running because going into the marathon uninjured is more important, but by Friday night it was feeling good enough I decided to give it a go.

My Goals 

•  Good- Run a strong race without aggravating my injury.
•  Great- Make it through a whole half marathon without making a potty stop. (Very important if I ever want to sub-2.)
•  Awesome- PR (2:09:46) I was not aiming to run hard but my long pace lately would put me very close to that PR.

 My Strategy

Start out easy to test the leg, setting into a comfortable but not too hard of a pace. Stay consistent for the race.

Race Morning
This is the first race that I haven't brought my family along to so getting up and getting going was pretty easy. I was there a little early but had lots of time to get my gear together and have a latte. I was supposed to meet two of the girls in our virtual marathon training group but they weren't able to make it so that was a little sad.

RACE TIME!!!
Mile 1- 9:30 I think I started way to far forward as I was being passed like crazy. My goal was to start slow to settle into how my leg felt but honestly for the first half mile, I was getting passed so much that I wasn't sure if I was running 11:00 minute miles or 8:00 minute miles.

Mile 2- 9:13 Once I got passed by all the people I was able to settle into a nice, relatively easy pace. The course is so twisty that my GPS is already pretty far ahead of the official mile markers.

Mile 3- 9:17  I skipped the first water stopjust because I didn't feel like I needed it and I didn't want to break pace.

Mile 4- 9:12 Very pleased with the pace I'm keeping.

Mile 5- 9:26 I actually ramped it up a bit on this mile but did slow down for a water stop.

Mile 6- 9:01 OMG This bit is so *straight* and flat. It almost feels effortless. At this point, I consider picking up my pace and trying to finish in under two hours. In the end I decided it wasn't worth pushing had and set a goal of 2:05 instead since I was pretty certain I was going to PR.

Mile 7- 9:11 I can't believe that I'm half way already.

Mile 8- 9:51 Pretty steep hill climb on this one and I slowed down a little but was steadily passing people. Yay for having at least one hill climb on pretty much every run I do! Also a water break here.

Mile 9- 9:09 What goes up must come down. Not as long of a decend as the ascend but a nice little dip in which to pick up some speed. Again, I thought about picking up the pace and trying for a sub 2:00 Again I decided it was a bad idea.

Mile 10- 9:40 Another water break and a porta john. First one all course. One of my goals was to get though the race without taking a potty break so I smiled to myself as I wizzed by. (See what I did there??)

Mile 11- 9:08 Still feeling pretty confident. Bypassed the last water stop to make up a little time. That sub-two pops up again and if my GPS were matching the official course markers, I could have pushed for it but I was more than a quarter mile off and I would not be able to make that up.

Mile 12- 9:12 I've still totally got this. No matter what I'm going to finish strong.

Mile 13- 9:41 So.... 10 used to be my really hard mile. Now that I'm doing longer distances, that's been pushed out a bit and 13 is an awkward place to have a hard mile. It didn't help that I was running in front of an older gentleman who was obviously trying to make a certain time and was grunting with every single step so I finally dropped behind him.

Mile 13.5- 10:32 I hit 13 miles on my GPS at 2:01 and even though I knew I wasn't going to make that sub 2:00 in the back of my mind, it was kind of deflating. And by now my brace was drooping and my leg was started to get cranky andthere was a bit of a hill climb to the finish so I didn't finish as stong as I could have but it was still a strong race.

Stats

Finish time: 2:05:20

Pace: 9:32
25/35 Division place
122/197 Females
342/489 Overall

Something I hadn't seen at a race before was if you went back inside, (to get your medal since they were only given to those that paid extra) they had a table where you could get a little reciept with all your stats on it. 

Overall, it was silly to set my sights on a 2:00 half-marathon at this point and I took 4:30 off of my previous PR and I ran a really strong race so I'm very proud of that. And I'm pretty sure that sub 2:00 is in my near future.