With my two marathons coming up next year, I realised that I needed far more experience at the longer distances. I know what it's like to race for up to nearly seven hours, but not what it's like to run 13.1 miles at a reasonable pace. Mark had done this race two years ago and loved it, despite the two-mile hill at the end.
After a beautiful warm but dry August, we paid for it this weekend. It was hot and humid and we realised that we hadn't done any training in the humidity, so we were in for a world of hurt. The race started in the late 70s and ended in the late 80s.
My goals for the race were simple - run as much as possible (since my injury in January, I hadn't run more than 4-5 miles straight - all other long 'runs' have been run/walk) and practice my heat tolerance. I don't do well with any kind of tactics like dividing the race into blocks and trying to push the pace, but simple strategies seem to work.
I started off fastish thanks to the two miles downhill, then settled into a comfortable pace. When I started to feel dizzy (thanks to the heat and/or humidity - that has often been my downfall), I slowed down a bit and seemed to recover. I was definitely slow, but I'm so very pleased that I ran the whole thing and didn't have to walk at any point. Even on the uphill where loads of people were walking, I just shuffled on by.
Final time - 2:18:59 - 10:36 pace. OK, but I've done nearly as fast (in cooler weather, mind) on a 14 mile run/walk. So I'm thinking of using my next half marathon in November as a run/walk baseline and see how much faster I can go.
I highly recommend this race, in case someone finds this blog by googling the name of the race. It's very well organized (wave starts went smothly, excellent and frequent aid stations, good signage) and it very very pretty. Even in the heat, it would have been shaded for 90% of the time since it's through the parks from Rockville to Bethesda. And we even got a hat at the end! Oh, and the technical shirt is long sleeved, not garish and comes in XS!
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