2015 Emerald City Half Marathon — Achieving Millennial

I put the cold, wet, icy towel on my head at the finishing chute. Yes, I walked around with that on my head like a crazy person for ten minutes; one other woman also had the right idea

Have you ever had everything go right for you when you’ve work so hard to achieve it?  Because, I feel that way after running the 2015 Emerald City Half Marathon in Dublin, Ohio.  Emerald City acted as a “tune up” race for my marathon in eight weeks.  I had no idea how the run would go, but it was the fastest, best-executed race I’ve run (although I haven’t run a 5K in year, I ran Emerald City as a faster pace. This is my second half marathon of the year, the first being Capital City in May.

I’ll try this in bullet form, for better reading.  As I have a tendency to ramble on and on and on.

Preperation

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  Obligatory outfit shot

  Nothing for the half, I went from Hidgon’s Inter. II to my own of “more is more”, until that wore me down

• I went from a PR of 47 miles to 83 miles in four weeks; although I have the body for that, fatigue started wearing me down; the past month+ I’ve run all willie-nillie with no structure…
• I ran two times totaling 8 miles since last Friday; I did yoga four times this week (including race day) and some squats as I felt my legs whither away

Race Day

• I woke up to my preset coffee and premade fruit smoothie at 0300
• That was the freshest I’ve ever been for a race — it felt like I had 7+ hours of sleep; I went to bed at 2045
• It was a 0700 race, so the first hour while waking up I searched online which 50mm Zeiss I want: the f/2.0 Makro (which I already owned, and it’s as sharp as Alen’s scalpel) or the faster, cheaper f/1.4
• After my German optic research I did a prerun yoga session, courtesy of RWOL
• I made my way out the door around 0530 to drive to Dublin
  

  Because why would you leave enough room on the screen for all miles?

• I wore my Hyperspeeds, racing splits, compression socks, Under Armor singlet, and carried a Camelback waterbottle

Prerace

• The Emerald City Half, and quarter, is a fairly new race, only about four years running; that means it’s a smaller operation, so there’s less hoopla than the marathon-priced Cap City Half
• I walked and walked and walked around as there wasn’t much to see
• I ran a mile prerace at 9:30ish pace, picking it up a little bit from time to time, per instruction from my running pals
• Lots and lots of beginner/new runners/walkers; the quarter included many walkers
• Although I’m not that fast, the corrals <9:00 weren’t super occupied
• I might have been the only person running faster than 8:00 who brought his own water; I have a 21 oz. Camelback with a Gu gel and two Hammer salt tabs — I didn’t take either, I didn’t need to, and I only drank about 12 – 15 oz. of water
• One of the last songs was “Centuries” by Fall Out Boy; as an Ohio State fan, you’re not going to not get pumped by that song, every. single. time.

Race

• 

  I completely ripped that idea off the football team.

  My plan was to start the race at ~7:30, ~7:15, then ~7:00 for the remainder; it was 7:19 ( I actually had to slow myself down a couple of times!), 7:11, 6:59, then a gradual negative split for the remainder — my fastest mile was the 13th at 6:49, the .2mile remainder was 6:25 pace

• The temperature was fall-like in August: started at 59 and ended mid-60s; mostly sunny
• Dublin is stupid flat; I had elevation gain of 88ft. and that seems high; there was one plane/inclide/bump a few miles in
• We went through a metro park — Glacial Park, I believe — at this point I started turning it up more because I love metro park trails, it was into the race enough I didn’t feel like I’d burn out, and my legs were finally firing on all cyclinders
• I started passing people midway through, but really only a few as although it’s a fast course it didn’t have too many fast runner; I don’t believe anyone ever passed me that I didn’t pass them back — one guy congratulated me afterward that I passed him after he passed me during the latter miles
• The last few miles had a shared road of Half and Quarter participants, meaning faster runners and walkers; it was a little annoying going around them, as runners often had to run left of center to pass
• This was the first race in which I wore headphones earbuds; it was my race and I usually run better listening to music, so…
• I never stopped — I didn’t have to, and I didn’t want to unnecessarily and slow myself down; an object in motion
• I got to meet a running friend — Tigger!  He also PRed
  

  I got to meet a new friend! The funny thing is he and I have passed each other on Alum Creek a few times…

Results

• Officially I ran 1:32.36 or 7:05, 58 of 1492, 51 of 723 men, 14 of 109 M20-29 (yes they had 10 year AG instead of 5, I was kind of miffed because guys in my age group run slower than 2-0-24)
• Strava/Garmin say I ran 13.2 in 1:32:35 (one second less) at 7:00; Facebook says I ran a 6:59 — I don’t know how they got that, but I might use that one…
• This was one of those races that I could have run a 1:4# or a 1:2# and it really wouldn’t have surprised me too much (okay,  1:29 would have but it’s “only” 10 seconds faster)
• I fucking nailed my negative splits with near-perfect execution; I had a game plan and stuck with it
• Events like this do so much in that they prove that hard work and proper planning can pay off big time
• I know I’m fast, many of my running friends know that I’m fast, but this race proved on paper that I can run a race fast — which helps me psychologically as much as anything
• This also validates my belief that I can run a <3:20 marathon in two months, with a chance of an hour PR. The weather should be cooler yet and at 7:30 it felt like I was jogging the first mile (actually I was running faster than that but tried to slow down…)
• As of writing this, my calves are a little tight but not too bad, it doesn’t feel like I had an 11-minute PR a few hours ago; I plan on starting the remainder of Pfitz’s 12/70 tomorrow
• I enjoyed cheese-stuffed deluxed pizza and Great Lakes Oktoberfest beer; it didn’t take too much to get a buzz on…

Final Random Thoughts

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  Oh, a sign I bought at the OBX that offers sage advice.

  This case went a long way as to teach me how to run a race; yeah, the last bit hurt, but it’ll end and you don’t want to slow down — pain is temporary, pride lasts forever

• The Asics Hyperspeed 6 continues to be my favorite shoe of all-time; you just feel fast in its 5.7 oz. of glory
• I think Emerald City needs to do a little better job with separating the quarter and half participants
• I’m going to eventually start to run more races as they are fun, just as long as you don’t freak yourself out too much
• With more racing experience I’ll learn to enjoy actually running races instead of freaking myself out (I suppose it’s the paradigm of I only run a few so I don’t want to fuck them up)
• I hope I didn’t leave anything important out…

Obligatory Instagram “Look what I ran!” GPS watch shot