Harbor Lights Half Marathon Race Report

When I signed up for this race I figured it would be a bit cold, but I didn't expect it to pour rain the entire race.  The weather at the start was 49 degree with showers. This presented the dilemma of what to wear. I choose shorts, a very light weight long sleeve tech shirt and a very light weight rain/wind jacket. I debated the jacket but I was glad to have it. The start of the race was also delayed about 15 minutes due to traffic issues on the course. My goal for this race was to beat my previous PR of 1:42:46, and hopefully go under 1:40.

Cold and wet but not too crowded at the start.

My strategy was to take the first three miles at a 7:30 pace and then evaluate how I was feeling. In my head I knew I could probably just keep that pace and then kick it up the last 3 miles. That plan didn't work. I made a critical mistake. At mile 5 I grabbed some water to drink. I don't know why, I wasn't even really thirsty. The water was cold. I gurgled it down while not really stopping because I like water-boarding myself and then at mile 5.15 I felt a cramp coming on. This has happened to me before so I knew what to expect. And what I expected was pain. That pain was a side stitch to be more accurate. It kicked in full gear and it literally staggered me. If you've never had one it feels like someone is taking a rake to the inside of your ribs and it's almost always on the right side of your body. Oddly enough scientists don't even really know why they happen. But they do happen and glugging water, like I did, is a known cause.

Pay no attention to the heart rate. I don't think it works well when it's raining, it messes up the optical sensor.

I had to slow my pace considerably. I even walked for a few seconds which is humbling. This happened in my last half and I remembered that it DOES go away after a while. And by a while I mean a few miles. While extremely painful it doesn't cause any injury. So I tried to relax, I went slower, and I simply ran through the pain. You can see on my pace chart (above) how my pace (in blue) dips hard when the cramp hit. Little by little was able to work myself back up to my goal pace, but I did lose valuable time, and it hurt.

Around mile 8 I felt like I could run normal again. However, the cramp feeling never went away and always seemed to be threatening to return. Even with the cramp in the background I was able to plod through the remaining wet miles. I even managed to run a pretty fast final mile!

Look! My feet aren't touching the ground!

My sweet wife came out in the rain with our three kids to cheer me at the finish. There was hardly anybody there due to the rain and cold. She is truly amazing and I'm a blessed man to have her support and friendship.

16th place in my age division out of 121. 124th place overall out of 2122 people.

My official time was 1:40:32 which is a new PR for me! I'm very happy about making a new PR. However, I am also left wanting a bit more. I feel very confident that if I could have avoided the cramp I could have ran a sub 1:40. Oh well, that just means I have to try again!

Update: I looked at my GPS again and it says I actually finished a Half in 1:39:46! While that's not my official time, I'll take it!

Oh, and about my goal to run the tangents? I think I did pretty well. My Garmin reported I ran 13.13. Several people around me had their watch's mile lap alarm going off 10-20 seconds before mine the whole way. I even heard one woman report she ran 13.41!

Tl:DR Rained the whole race, got side cramps at mile 5, recovered and still PR'd. 

 

Sixty Four

Sixty four is the number of turns in the Harbor Lights Half Marathon. Ouch. It's like they gave a crayon and a map of downtown Norfolk to a child and asked them to draw a race route. I guess the turns will keep me from zoning out and going into cruise control mode. Though the course is very flat the number of turns makes me think it won't be a naturally fast race.

My strategy is to run the tangents. A tangent is simply a straight line that just touches the curve. In other words, run the shortest distance possible. If done correctly you can shave off a good amount of distance and it is completely legal to do. The idea is to not 'swing out' before a turn, or cross to the other side of the road too early. Simply run the shortest distance possible from one point to the other. Not only is this good advice but it is actually how race courses are measured. If you don't do this you will probably run more than the actual race distance. The USA Track and Field Course Certification Manual says that "a race course is defined by the shortest possible route that a runner could take and not be disqualified." This route is actually very difficult to follow due to the throngs of other people. In fact USATF also states that "most runners don’t actually run the SPR (shortest possible route), so the distance recorded by their GPS device will usually be longer than the certified length of the course." They don't care though. The point of the race certification is to make sure you run at least the distance the course is certified for. Thanks a lot.

People smarter than me have done calculations to see how much distance you lose if you run the outside of a 90 degree turn verse the inside. It comes out to about 40 feet. So there are 64 turns in this race. That means there is a possible variance in distance from the turns alone of 2560 feet or 0.48 mile! That could easily be a 4-5 minute swing of time just by running the corners smartly.



Red turn = good, blue turn = bad

The main enemy of this strategy for me is People (because they won't just get out of my way for some reason), pot-holes (I like my ankles working), and the simple fact that I just don't ever think about this when doing my regular runs during the week. I'll be sure to post what my GPS watch says I ran for the race when it's all over.

In other news I ran four miles at lunch on my normal at-work run route. It's an out and back that has about a two miles through the woods on a trail.  On the way back I saw a snake, screamed like a girl, and pranced around for about 10 seconds. Snakes aren't cool. They should stay off the running path.

Half in a Month & Week In Review

Wish me luck! I signed up for the Harbor Lights Half Marathon on November 22. That means I have 19 days left to train! The good news is that I have a good mileage base built up. I've been running between 20-30 miles per week for a long time. The epic news is there is a 'pie stop' during the race. That's right, they are handing out little mini pumpkin pies to keep you going. And there is beer at the end, which is always a win.

The bad news is my longest run the past 6 months is only 8 miles long. I would love to PR this race but I am not sure if I will have the endurance to stay with it the last few miles. My plan is to get three 'long' runs in before race day and hope for the best. I know (Lord willing) that I can finish, but I'm not really sure if I can keep my goal pace for the duration. 

This is my 'pain' face on September 25th. This was my first run back on shore after my deployment. I was already thinking of running the Half, so in many ways this was my first training run.

Here's my week in review:

Monday: 6.24 miles at 7:46 pace
Tuesday: Weights for an hour, chest and some biceps
Wednesday: 8 miles at 8:27 pace
Thursday: 5 miles at 7:59 pace, 50 pull-ups and 50 push-ups
Friday: 5 miles at 7:45 pace, 35 pull-ups, 50 push-ups
Saturday: 5 miles at 8:12 pace 65 pull-ups, beer, pizza and some Halloween candy
Sunday: Rest!

Total miles for the week: 29.24
Total miles for October: 101
Average October pace: 8:01

I didn't get any photos this week during my workouts so here is me on 'rest' day; Sunday morning enjoying some coffee.