Providence Half Marathon Recap

Second race in a return to running world. check. Providence was a semi familiar course for me, as I would run (the flattest part of it) sometimes when I was in high school. To refresh my memory, I drove most of it the day before. I forgot PVD had as many hills as it does, but hey, I like them, so what goes up must come down.

It was nice that I could stay at home for this race, so it was basically like I was in ATL. Mom cooked a nice pasta dinner with meatballs, eggplant parm, so I was ready to go! I rolled up about 30 minutes before the race was to start to get my warmup, strides and stretching in.

The start was similar to Woodlands in that it wasn’t just everyone go at one, but a group of people starting every 10 seconds. I think I crossed the line a minute and a half from the first people. We had to keep our masks on through the start, I took mine off at around the quarter mile mark. Ok, we are racing. Let’s go!

The first mile was downhill and with the excitement of the race, I popped through in a 643, which was a bit faster than the goal of 650-655. So I settled in and got ready for the rollers to come. I was to go through the 10k with these paces and see where I was at.

The miles then clicked by. The speed felt controlled and I was able to keep a steady pace with the ups and downs. 652, 653, 649, 649, 649. I was like a metronome. I saw my parents in front of our gas station at about 6.5, so that was a great boost before heading into a pretty big climb. At this point, I was gaining on some women I could see coming back to me. I would loop by the station again right before 8 miles. By this point I had picked off a few people. My parents said I was not in the top 10 when I first went by.

I felt good, so we then began to cruise to take the times down a bit. I thought it was flat from here on out, nah… but I was still cruising in 647, 643, 648. At this point I had stopped driving the course the day before. I was ready to go into a new gear for the last 5k!

Some additional people came back to me to chase. I got a little surprise at mile 10 with a hill. All the other hills hadn’t been any issue, but for some reason this just took it from my legs. Once I got to the top and was running along the water, I was hitting 651 and 656. Ugh! Not what I wanted, but I was focusing on one foot in front of the other and just run. The course was pretty at this point, nice water views, but the sun decided to make an appearance. It had been cloudy the majority of it, which was very nice.

12 and 13 were 703 and 7 - I felt like I was going faster for 13, but one last hill was there. Once I crested the top, I knew it would be close. I didn’t do myself any favors in those last 2 miles. GO. I pushed on and somehow found another gear to run 6 min pace the last .1 (from the strides). A bonus is not trying to stop your watch as you cross the line, wait until after so you dont lose any speed. I have been guilty of this in the past. When the official results came out, I even gained a few seconds.

Overall I ended with a 1:29:51 and was able to sneak in under my goal. I was the 8th woman overall and 2nd in my age group, also nice surprises. I like the challenges of hard race courses. They help build toughness and when I go flat, it will seem easy.