Charleston Half Marathon - Race Report

Chucktown Course

Last Sunday was the Charleston Half Marathon, the first race of the 2013 season. This was only a "C" race for me, meaning I didn't taper for it and wasn't planning on going all-out. This was good because we drove up Friday afternoon after work and didn't get to our hotel until 12:30am, which meant just over 5 hours of sleep. Ugh.

Bre and I were only running the half while our friend Scott was braving the full (his first marathon!), so we drove down together in the morning and got to the course with plenty of time to huddle inside the highschool with the rest of the racers (it was 41 degrees at the start!). The race only had ~2000 runners, so there weren't any corrals to line up in, so Bre and I sort of stood in the middle of the pack. My plan was to take it easy for the first mile and then kick it up a gear and see how my body felt. My PR was 1:59:28 from the Crawlin' Crab, which is a pace of 9:07/mile, so if I could hover around that and then push for the last few miles I might even be able to PR. Here's the breakdown of how the race went:

Mile 1: 9:16. A bit faster than I expected for the beginning, but it was crowded enough that you sort of had to let yourself get shuffled along by the pack of people. Since the majority of the course was heading northwest I chose not to wear my sunglasses, but this first mile (and the next two!) were headed straight into the sun. Near the beginning I passed a fan with a Red Sox hat, and he picked me out (since I was wearing my Sox hat too) and high-fived me as I passed.

Houses on the left, water on the right.

Mile 2: 8:55. I kept the same level of "effort" for this mile, with the exception that I didn't let myself get stuck behind groups of people. It's too easy to get caught in a bunch of runners and coast along with them, so every time I came across one of these I forced myself to run hard and pass them. I was pleased to see my split under 9:00.

Mile 3: 8:52. Doing great, same thing as the previous mile: slightly pushing myself, with bursts of speed to avoid packs of people. This mile was along Charleston's iconic waterfront homes, and very pretty.

Mile 4: 8:54. Finally out of the sun. Near the end of this mile was a water stop. I walk through every water stop, and walked a bit longer to eat a gel pack, and was happy to see my time didn't suffer for it.

Confederate Defenders memorial

Mile 5: 8:37. I was feeling great so I shifted into a slightly faster gear for this mile. I almost believed my GPS was off, but the course mile markers were matching up with what my phone said. Have I really improved this much since October?

Mile 6: 8:43. Around this time I was doing the mental math: if I needed a 9:06 pace to beat my previous PR, then I had already banked almost 90 seconds of buffer time. It was still early though, so I was waiting for the wheels to fall off.

Mile 7: 8:46. Another 20 seconds of buffer added. My legs were a little tired, but no other aches and pains.

Mile 8: 9:01. This mile was a long open area, where you could see the course and all the other runners stretching towards the distance. There was a water stop at the end, and I took the opportunity to eat my second gel pack, which accounts for the slower time. 

Mile 9: 8:41. Back on pace, nothing hurting yet though a little tired.

Mile 10: 8:59. This is where fatigue finally started catching up to me. I could feel myself running out of gas, and my left inner thigh was feeling really tight. "Damnit leg, don't bail on me now!" I thought. Knowing that I had a lot of time banked helped me keep from worrying too much though.

Mile 11: 8:44. After passing the Mile 10 marker, knowing that I only had a 5K left, I decided to keep pushing myself instead of coasting into a PR. "Let's get some 8:30 splits in" I told myself. It felt like I was running that fast, but the numbers (although nice) weren't quite that good.

Mile 12: 8:49. Same as mile 11: I felt like I was running much faster, but my time wasn't reflecting it. This mile was GORGEOUS, and ran through a park along the Copper River. Unfortunately that meant fighting some wind too, the first of the day.

Mile 13: 8:55. Energy was draining from my legs fast, but I still managed to keep it under 9 minutes. My left thigh felt on the brink of seizing up. 

Last 0.1 miles: 8:39 pace. Near the finishing chute I saw the Red Sox fan from the beginning of the race, and he pointed and me and screamed: "YEAH RED SOX FINISH STRONG BABY" and high-fived me again. That gave me a much-needed boost to finish hard.

1:56:11 Final Time

8:52 Average Pace

655 out of 2173 overall

384 out of 856 males

72 out of 139 M25-29 age group

I shattered my PR by 3 minutes and 17 seconds! Not only that, but my body felt really good immediately after the race (unlike the Crawlin' Crab, where my muscles cramped up and I had to limp around for the rest of the day). After getting my medal and some post-race grub I met up with Scott's family and my father-in-law. Scott's wife Nicky was VERY prepared, and had a gallon of chocolate milk waiting in a cooler. Nothing beats chocolate milk after a race.

Bre came in a little bit later. Her time (2:44:30) missed being a PR by 40 seconds, but she told me it was easily her best race mentally/physically. Sometimes the official time doesn't tell the whole story, folks.

My amazing wife, finishing strong and looking great!

The full marathon started at the same time as the half, so we had some time to kill before Scott came in. The official post-race meal was shrimp and grits, which didn't sound too appetizing at first but was actually incredible. Also, beer.

Despite starting out chilly, the day was perfect: 60 degrees and sunny. It felt good to hang out on the grass and cheer finishers on while enjoying our free beer. This was the 6th race I've been in where the runners get beer, and it was the first one where I had a chance to use all of my beer vouchers! In all the others I was either too cold or too tired.

Scott (a fellow Vibrams wearer!) came storming through a little bit later, accompanied by Wiley.

He finished around the 4:46 mark, which beats my first marathon time by a good 13 minutes. Not bad for his first time! Immediately after the race he told his wife that he was never doing that again, but by the next morning he had already revoked that statement. 

Overall it was a fantastic day spent with great friends and family, and the race was wonderful. The crowds were always loud and enthusiastic, even 5 hours into the race. This woman received an especially loud roar from the crowd:

Wow.

2013 Goals

Without further ado, here are my goals for 2013:

Swimming: I don't have any outlandish goals for swimming. I've got a solid base right now, so I mostly want to remain consistent in waking up at 4:00am three times a week to swim. Measurable goal: swim 300,000 for the year, which is an average of 25,000 per month.

Biking: This is where I need to make the biggest improvement. 112 of the 140.6 miles in Ironman are on the bike, and right now it's my weakest of the three disciplines since the cold weather (and short days!) have limited my time in the saddle. Currently I'm only biking once a week (a long ride on the weekend), but that will change in the next week or so when the days are finally long enough to ride after work again. This is sort of a shot in the dark, but I think 4000 miles is a good goal for the year. That's about 77 miles per week, or 333 per month, which should account for the very high 

Running: Conservatively, I want to hit the 1000 mile mark this year. That would roughly be a 20% increase over last year's mileage, and absolutely doable given my current fitness level. However, a more aggressive goal is to hit 100 miles every month for the whole year, for a grand total of 1200+ miles. Last year my running mileage was constantly up and down, and I'd like to try to be more consistent.

So to sum it up:

• Swim 300,000 meters total.
• Bike 4000 miles total.
• Run 100 miles every month, or 1200 total.

In other news, I realized what was causing my ankle pain: the loafers that I wear to work (which I've had for 4+ years) were worn-down on the outsides, which was changing my natural walking stride. I bought some Sketchers and the pain was gone within a day.

The Charleston Half-Marathon is this weekend. I'm not sure what my goals for this race will be, but I'm sure I'll post about it in the next day or so once I decide.

Ironman Training: Week 9

This week was a bit lazy, for a couple of reasons. First of all, A Memory Of Light came out, the 14th and final book in the Wheel of Time series. This kept me occupied for the majority of my free time this week, and it took me 6 days to read all 915 pages. Second, my left ankle has been bothering me. I tested it during a short run on Tuesday, but decided to skip the rest of my week's runs to be safe, since the Charleston half marathon is next week.

Monday: Swam 2400m (400m warm-up, then 10x200)

Tuesday: Ran an easy 3.15 miles. 

Wednesday: Swam 2200m (400m warm-up, 1000 long, then 8x100 sprints). It felt good to do some fast 100m sets; my quickest one was 1:37. I also practiced some flip-turns.

Thursday: Nothing.

Friday: Nothing.

Saturday: 40.53 mile bike ride. This was a great ride, and I was able to keep my heart rate under control for most of it. The last 9 mile loop was tough, but I felt energetic up to that point. My legs cramped up pretty bad when I got home though. I need to be better about stretching immediately after a run/ride.

Sunday: Nothing.

Weekly Totals:

Swim: 4600m (2 hours, 1 minute)

Bike: 40.53 miles (2 hours, 31 minutes)

Run: 3.15 miles (31 minutes)

Strength: None

Total: 5 hours, 3 minutes

Ironman Training: Week 8

Boy did it feel good to get back into the swing of things this past week.

Monday: This was the last day of the year, but I wasn't feeling too hot in the pool before work. I felt bleh in my 400m warm-up, and decided to do sets of 100m (instead of my usual 200m). However, after the first 100 I felt good so I kept going to 200 without stopping. I still felt great, and hardly winded at all, and continued on to 300. Before I knew it I had done 2000m straight, the longest I had ever continuously swam (previously my longest was 1000m). I did it in 41 minutes, a pace of 2:03/100m. I did a few sets of 100m as a cool-down, finishing the day with 2700m total.

Tuesday: My ankles have been unusually sore lately, so I took it easy and did an easy 4 mile run.

Wednesday: I slept in and missed swimming this morning, but I lifted weights in the afternoon (Squat: 3x5x115, Bench: 3x12x105, Pull-ups: 32)

Thursday: Woke up and went to the pool to make up for missing it the day before, and regretted it. The pool was packed, 8-9 people lazily screwing around in the lanes and not really doing anything. They gave me more room once they realized I was actually swimming continuously, but it was still a distraction. On top of that my arms were very sore from the weights the night before. Ended up swimming 2000m total (400m warm-up, then 16x100). That night I ran 9 miles, alternating slow and fast miles. 

Friday: My arms were still sore in the morning, so I skipped the pool. This turned into a complete rest day.

Saturday: 13.11 mile long run. My right IT band was a bit sore near the end, but not bad.

Sunday: 34 mile long bike ride, followed by a 1 mile run. Legs had more energy than last week, and I had no trouble keeping my heart rate low this time. However, my legs were incredibly fatigued when I started running, so much so that I scrapped my plan to do 4 miles and just did the one. Oh well, better than nothing. I really need to start biking once during the week as well.

Weekly Totals:

Swim: 4700 meters (2 hours 21 minutes)

Bike: 34.26 miles (2 hour 9 minutes)

Run: 27.11 miles (4 hours 39 minutes)

Strength: 45 minutes

Total: 9 hours 54 minutes

Rounding Out The Year

The Holidays, along with some illness, have sidelined me a bit. Here's how the last few weeks have been.

Ironman Training Week 5 (Dec 10-16): I was sick this week, so I didn't do very much. I ran 3.11 miles once I felt better, and after several days of inactivity my body wanted to go fast. I flew to Dallas to see my family, and ended the week with a 6.22 mile run. Dallas is dry! 1.5 hours of total exercise this week.

Ironman Training Week 6 (Dec 17-23): 10 mile run on Tuesday, another 10 miler on Thursday (alternating fast miles and slow miles), and a 13.1 mile run to end the week. My left achilles tendon was a bit sore after the Thursday run, and was even worse during the half-marathon. 5.5 hours of total exercise this week.

Ironman Training Week 7 (Dec 24-30): I was severely lazy this week. Skipped a run I had planned for Christmas day, then swam 1.5 miles on Wednesday morning. I did nothing Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Bre was still in Richmond and I just didn't have the motivation to go out into the cold/rainy weather. Sunday I mustered up the energy to go for a long bike ride, 29 miles in 40 degree weather and 25+ mph wind gusts. From the start my heart rate was too high, and riding slowly wouldn't make it go down much. It was good to get back out on the bike though, and by the end my legs felt like lead. 3 hours of total exercise this week.

Here are my totals for the year (though I've only been biking/swimming since June):

Swimming: 82200 meters (51 miles), 36 hours and 07 minutes
Biking: 1000 miles, 59 hours and 04 minutes
Running: 815 miles, 138 hours and 17 minutes

I'm pleased with the running, since it's my first full-year of running consistently. The swimming has been good too, and I'm seeing some big gains in the pool. Biking is where I need to make my biggest improvement. When the weather improves, and the days are longer, I need to put in some serious time on my bike.

I have some new thoughts on training, and I'll post some goals for 2013 after nailing down my schedule. Happy New Year, everybody!