My First Half Marathon – DRC Half – Nov 2, 2008

Although I am training for the full marathon, the half marathon is part of the training program for the half marathon. I wanted to see if I can do the half marathon in less than 2 hours. This was going to be my first time running a non-stop 13 miles.

Although the race was starting at 8:00 am, with the DST change, the race was effectively at 9:00 am. The weather was unusually warm and that didn't help the running. I wanted to run with the 2:00 hour target pace group but since I had forgotten my water bottle, I had to rush back to the car to get it. I reached the race location just 2 minutes before the start of the race. There were about 4000 people lined up to start the half marathon. Since it takes a while for every runner to reach the start time, there was a RFID chip on every runners shoe which was going to track the time from the moment the runner cross the start line until (s)he crosses the finish line. Although I was aware of the chip, I didn't know at what time I crossed the start line (turns out that it was 1min 40 sec after the gun time, the official race start time). So, I just started running at 9:00 min/mile pace for the first half mile. At half a mile mark, I heard the timer say that it was 6:20 min since we started. I got a little panicky thinking that I must be running late and would not be able to reach my target of 2:00 hours. So, I started speeding up and running at a speed of 8:00-8:30 min/mile. I finally found of the Asha runners who was also targeting 2:00 hour target. I started running with him. Even he didn't know what his chip time was. So, we just maintained the 8:30 min/mile speed shaving off 30 seconds for every mile. There was a volunteer at every mile who was saying out loudly the official time taken to finish total miles so far. We finished the first four miles in 36 minutes. At this point, the other Asha runner slowed down a bit and I just continued at the same pace. I finished the 7 miles in 62.5 minutes. This was clearly a much faster pace than I am used to and started feeling the effects after 7 miles. I met another Asha runner (the fastest Asha runner) at this point and ran the next 1.5 miles with him at a 9min/mile pace. After finishing 9 miles, I felt like I had run out of gas and started walking for about 30 seconds and then running for a mile. I was repeating this routine for the next 2 miles and finished the 11 miles in about 1 hr, 39 minutes. At this point, I felt like I didn't have any energy to keep running. All my training over the past 2 months didn't seem to help. As if to push me, the first Asha runner that I had started running with at the beginning of the race caught up with me and I got some more energy to run with some company. We finished the next one mile in 9min 30 sec. We had finished 12 miles in 1hr 48 min (official gun time). At this point, we both were totally exhausted and I knew that even if I walked for a minute, I could still finish the last mile in 10 minutes. So, we just walked for about 30 seconds and did the next half a mile in 4.5 minutes. We again walked for 30 seconds and started for the last 0.6 mile. We finished the last 0.4 mile in 4.5 min. I started my final sprint towards the finish line for the last 0.15 mile. I finished the half marathon at the official gun time of 1:59:17. I was later happy to find out that my official race finish time (chip time) was 1:57:37.

It was satisfying to finish my first Half marathon and achieve my target of below 2 hours and to have run a 8:59 min/mile. I need to see if I can increase my speed by at least 15 seconds more by the time of the full marathon (Dec-14). There is not much time between now and the full marathon but hopefully I will be able to do the marathon also at the same pace as half marathon. I am targeting to finish the full marathon in 4 hrs 15 minutes. One of the Asha's experienced runners told me that the rule of thumb is to double the time taken for half and add 10 minutes to it. That gives me a time of 4 hrs 4 minutes. Let's see what the full marathon has in store for me but for now I am elated to have completed the half marathon! The embarrassing thing was to be placed 1024 place among the3285 runners that ran today. The positive way of looking at it is that I am in the top third of the runners that ran today. There was just one Asha runner that finished ahead of me though !

Here is the official times from DRC website: http://www.thehalf.org/results/2008_DRCHalfOverall.HTM ]
[ Search for : Raghavan to find my name..Note that it's a case sensitive search, so search for the exact word "Raghavan" , with "R" caps and the rest in small letters ]

Here are the stas from the GPS (note the high average heart rate indicating that I was running at a pace that I am not usually used to). It was my highest average heart rate so far ! This is about 90% of my maximum heart rate which is the maximum effort VO2 and is not a sustainable pace for a long time. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Exercise_zones.png ]

Activity	Type	Activity	Type	Miles	Time (HH:MM:SS)	Avg. Pace (min/Mile)	Avg. Speed	Calories Burnt	Avg. Heart Rate
Morning	Morning	Evening	Evening
Running	Long Run	None	None	13:10	1:57:37	8:59	6.63	1715	174