I finished the first section of Tommy Rivers’ half-marathon training series (in Bolivia) and have moved on to the second section (Japan). I ran two Austin races in November, notching some real-world running experience in preparation for the 3M Half Marathon that I’ll be running at the end of January.
Run for the Water
On November 6th, I ran the “Run for the Water” ten miler, a charity race in support of providing clean water sources in Burundi.
Fortunately, everything that could’ve gone wrong with this race didn’t– the weather was nice, and my full belly had no complaints. This was my first race experience with music (my Amazon Fire phone to one Bluetooth headphone) and a carried snack (GU chews), and I figured out how to coax my watch into providing pacing information every half mile.
I had two goals for the race: To run the whole thing without stopping, and to beat 1:30 overall.
I achieved both, with a finishing time of 1:28:57, a pace of 8:53 per mile, and 1294 calories expended.
As predicted, I started at a faster pace before leveling out, with my slowest times in the hills around mile six:
The mid-race hills weren’t as bad as I feared, and I spent most of mile 6 and 7 psyching myself up for one final big hill that never arrived. By mile 8, I was daydreaming about blazing through miles 9 and 10, but started lagging and only sprinted at the very end. With an eye toward the half marathon, as I crossed the finish line, I asked myself whether I could run another 3.1 miles in thirty minutes and concluded “probably, but just barely.”
Notably, I managed to keep my heart rate under control for almost the whole race, running nearly the entire thing at just under 85% of my max:
The cool-but-not-cold weather undoubtably helped.
2023 Turkey Trot
On a drizzly Thanksgiving morning, I ran the Turkey Trot 5-miler and had another solid run, although I didn’t take it as seriously and I ended up missing both of my goals: Run the entire thing, and finish in 42 minutes.
After the Capitol 10K in the spring, I was expecting the horde of runners at the start and was prepared for the temptation to join others in walking the hills early in the race. I wasn’t expecting the challenge of running on wet pavement, but I managed to avoid slipping. Alas, after topping the hills at mile 2, I then walked for a tenth of a mile to get my breathing and heart rate back under control.
Despite the shorter distance, my heart rate was considerably higher than during the ten miler earlier in the month:
I ended with a time of 44:06, an 8:49 pace just a hair faster than the ten miler, burning 673 calories in the effort:
So, a set of mixed results: I’m now considering whether I should try running a slow half marathon in December just to prove to myself that I can cover the distance without stressing about my time.
Impatient optimist. Dad. Author/speaker. Created Fiddler & SlickRun. PM @ MSFT '01-'12, and '18-, working on Office, IE, Edge, and Web Protection. My words are my own, I do not speak for any other entity. View more posts