With Ike's (hurricane) effect looming large, I was not sure if we will be able to complete the 13 miles. I reached the Whitewater lake at 7:00 am and we started at 7:10 am.
The route was going through the lake for about 2 miles, then on the streets for about 4 miles and finally come back and do the loop around the lake for 7 miles. I started out well leading my pace group (10 minutes and higher) with 2 more people. I did the first two miles in 18 min (9min/mile). Then we stopped for a water break. I stopped along with the group although I didn't really need a break. The we went to the streets where we still kept the pace. The two other people I was running with used to run for about 0.3 mile then walk for about 0.1 mile. Since I was not that familiar with the streets, I decided to follow their pace. I think I must have lost about 5 minutes trying to do this. Then there was some confusion in the entire group after about 5 miles with our pace leader asking us to go back and forth. This confusion and the resulting pattern caused some loss of momentum for me. We got back to the lake after 6 miles and I was still leading the group and finished the first 6 miles in about one hour.
From my last week experience, I knew that this was the time when I really get bogged down. So, to get some instant boost of energy I took some Gatorade which helped me in continuing. I am not a big fan of the Gatorate and would much rather drink some water. One of the runners suggested after the race that the "Gu" gel is a much better alternative to get an instant boost of energy. At this point, it started drizzling which slow became heavier. I wanted to run in rain and had my desire finally fulfilled. But this is not something that I want to do often, for about 1.5 miles, we ran in the rain. I finished the next 3 miles in 33 minutes. At this point, I was really tired and started to slow down a lot. I started following a pattern of running for 0.5 miles and walking for about 0.1 mile. I finished the next 3 miles in 35 minutes. I finished the 12 miles in 128 minutes. I was really tired at this point and the last mile was the toughest mile I ran in a while. I finished the last mile in 12 minutes. Since I wanted to have the satisfaction of doing a half marathon, I just ran another 0.1 mile and did the entire 13.1 miles in 2hrs 21 minutes.
With more favorable conditions and some help with directions, I could have shaved off 10 to 15 minutes off this. But that's not an excuse, these things could happen on the race day as well. I should make sure that I up my pace a little. The trick is to up the pace while increasing the distance every week and that's always tough !
BTW.. It's just a coincidence that I did the 13 miles on Sep-13 J
Here are the stats from my Forerunner 350.
Date | Day | Activity | Type | Miles | Time (HH:MM:SS) | Avg. Pace (min/Mile) | Avg. Speed | Calories Burnt | Avg. Heart Rate | |||
13-Sep | Sat | Running | Long Run | 13:11 | 2:21:28 | 10:47 | 5.6 | 1650 | 164 | |||
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