Savannah Rock and Roll Recap
Last month, I can’t believe its been almost a month, I ran my first real race in a long time. As many already know, my last two marathon attempts (Boston no less) have been cut short on injury. I am going to be finally running another marathon in January in Miami and Savannah Rock n Roll half was the perfect halfway point in my training to see how I was doing and get some confidence back in longer racing.
When I first put it on the calendar, I really wanted to go sub-130. My coach told me I shouldn’t really focus on time and we can see where the training takes me. I kind of kept that in my head for a while until the month or so leading up to the race. A week or so out I determined I would be happy if I ran 1:34 or faster. A few days out the weather was looking like it was going to be a hot one, so they moved up the race time. I was excited to race and the morning of I got up and had some butterflies to just get the race started! Luckily I was in the first corral and was fairly close to the front of the pack.
My new race goal was to go out relaxed at 7:15 and then go from there. I was going off my watch and I went through first mile in 7:08 – felt good so I went with it. All the miles were fairly even, right around 7 or just under (accordingly watch). In reality I was running sub 7s. I felt great until mile 11 when I just felt good (still not bad!). The course is fairly flat and this part is where the hill is and the sun came out, so this mile ended up being my slowest at 7:23. I decided against packing it in at this point because I noticed I could still PR! I brought down my next mile to 7:15 and then 7:02, crossing with a new PR of 1:32:04. I put everything in perspective of going from 5 months prior being on crutches, to running a 7:01 average half and I was pretty happy…. i say only pretty happy because miles 11/12 stole my sub 7 pace! Kidding aside, I know the next half will be sub 1:30 and this was the confidence boost I needed to head into the hard part of marathon training. I won’t be doing any more long races prior to Miami, instead taking the time to focus on my long runs.