The 2013 season comes to an end

This weekend, Chad and I spent 24 hours in Detroit for the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon. Following the same agenda we did last year, we drove down on Saturday afternoon after Liam's hockey game, went to packet pick-up (which for this race includes processing of your passport), and settled in for an early evening at the MGM Grand. Well, it was supposed to be early. We stayed up late enough to think the Tigers had a chance of making it to game 7, only to wake up and find out that following a Red Sox grand slam, it was not meant to be.

This was the 7th half marathon I've run and the first time I was really gunning for a goal time. My first race back in 2000 has stood for 13 years as my PR at 2:04:54. I have long held that I'd like to break 2 hours but have never done it. Then again, my half marathon training has never been all that focused. Typically I do one long run a week and wing a few shorter ones the rest of the time. And then, whether I have a great run or a lousy one, I generally finish in the 2:06 timeframe. Keep in mind I was significantly younger and lighter when I set that PR!

This time around I was more invested. I followed a training plan and got to experience all of the joys of tempo runs and intervals. The plan ran for 13 weeks and I missed maybe 3 days. I was as ready as I'd ever be.

I set a hierarchy of goals, because I figured if I had one goal and I missed it, I'd swear off running forever. The hierarchy looked like this:

1 - beat last year's time on this course (2:06:54)
2 - sub-2:05
3 - new PR
4 - sub-2:02
5 - sub-2:00

Whenever my race plan called for a run at race pace, I ran it at 9:10 per mile, which was what I'd need to finish in sub-2. It was hard but I had one glorious long run a few weeks ago where I held that pace for 8 miles and thought perhaps I could eek it out for the whole 13.1 on race day.

But, it wasn't meant to be. I had a good day but not a great day. The hills really got to me. Unlike last year, where I ran really efficiently and negative splitted most of the course, this time around I was less consistent. I thought about trying to stay with a 2:00 pace bunny but I know that I always need a few miles to warm up and can generally run faster toward the end. So I started slow, but this time, I had no gas left in the tank to catch up at the end.

I should be happy, because I finished in 2:02:59, which obviously meets my 3rd level goal and hello, that PR has held for 13 years - it's about time I broke it! What has me bummed though is something stupid. I ran the race using my GPS watch and rather than watching total time, I was watching pace. The watch miscalculated the total length of the course, finishing 0.15 miles longer than it should have. This meant it calculated my pace at 5 seconds per mile faster than I really was. So when I crossed the finish line, I knew I hadn't run under 2:00, but I thought I'd finished in 2:01:46 and met goal #4. It was only when I checked the official results that I realized the error and saw that I'd really run 2:02:59 and only met goal #3. Dagnabbit!!

So, now I have to find a nice flat course to run at a race that occurs when the weather is perfect. (Trot to the Beach is a nice flat course, though dreadfully dull, but being the first weekend in June, it can be awfully hot.) I figure the steep incline on the bridge and tunnel got to me today and that's why that 9:10 pace was so elusive. The last 4 or so miles were a real struggle just to hold on; there was no way I was going to finish strong.

Oh well. I guess that's why runners keep running right? There's always an elusive goal and a "maybe next time".

(The view from our hotel room after the race. The starting line was a few blocks away, the bridge we crossed in the distance, and you can see some late finishers still making their way down Michigan Ave.)