williamhathaway.com

What: Lehigh Valley Half-Marathon

When: Sunday April 27th 2008

Where: Allentown PA

Executive Summary: Great weather, felt terrific, ran 1:35:21 (new PR).

Full Results:

http://www.queencitytiming.com/2008_results/lvhalf2008.htm

Full Report:

I ran this race last year (my first half-marathon) and really enjoyed it, finishing in 1:43:55. This year I was excited about running it again since:

• it is well organized
• has a lot of bands playing along the course and great crowd support
• a bunch of friends were also planning on running in it
• my parents decided to come out and watch/cheer

I was pretty sure I could run faster than last year, but didn’t quite know what my level of fitness would be. The plan was to run with the Garmin 1:40 pace team for the first 5k and then decide if I felt good enough to push it faster or just try to hang on as long as I could. My friend and twice weekly training partner Jon Laman was in a similar position, our training runs typically had us running within a few BPM of each other. I knew from the Chambersburg Half-Marathon six weeks ago that if I ran with a heart rate of about 88-90% max I could run a decent race and not fall apart on the last few miles.

Jon and I drove up the night before since race packet pickup is only available on Saturday (if you can’t make it, you need to give a copy of your driver’s license to someone who will be there on Saturday, otherwise no race for you). The packet pickup process was fairly well organized, and we had our packets and chips in about 5 minutes. The bibs are really cool, they are customized with your first name in large letters so that people in the crowd can cheer you on by name. We had gotten into town a bit on the late side, and unfortunately they were all out of medium jackets by the time we arrived at the jacket pickup station, so I was stuck with a large.

We had a pretty relaxed night before the race. We ate a reasonable dinner at Fridays, bought a few provisions at the local grocery store, and watched some movies on HBO.

Got up at 6:00 and ate a light breakfast. Ryan Higdon and his girlfriend Jessica met us at the hotel and then we drove the two miles toward the race at around 7:20. Traffic was pretty crazy and we ended up getting to Allen High where the race was held about 5-6 minutes before the start. Saw big lines for the porta-potties and walked into the high school. Inside here were “normal” bathrooms there and no lines. Sweet. Said “hi” to a few friends and then we headed back outside and jogged over to the starting corrals with about 2 minutes to go.

Jon and I lined up right behind the Garmin pace team leader that was shooting for a 1:40 pace (7:38/miles). The start was all-business: right on time and no lame blah blah chit-chat while everyone waiting to start. Jon and I passed the starting line about 10 seconds after the clock began and hit our watches as we crossed the chip timing mat.

The race begins with a nice down-hill section. As with any race with multiple thousands of people, the first part of the race is really crowded. We were following about 10 feet behind the 1:40 pace leader guy (PLG). We hit the first mile at 7:16, and the second mile at 7:22. I was surprised that we were already 38 seconds faster than a 1:40 pace at the 2nd mile and wondered what the PLG’s plan was.

Part-way into mile 3 the PLG started slowing the pace down and people began really bunching up. This made it way too crowded to run easily. Jon and I decided to go around the pack and started picking up the pace to get out of the crowd.

We finished the 3rd mile in 7:30. I saw my parents at around the 3.5 mile marker (and coming back at about 5.5 miles), and that gave a nice boost. Jon and I were now clicking away the miles. Splits were:

Mile 4: 7:15

Mile 5: 7:16

Mile 6: 7:17

The courses headed off the street and onto a crushed gravel path part way into mile 7. I really like running on that crushed gravel, but since the path wasn’t very wide it made it difficult to pass people if there was a small cluster of runners.

Mile 7: 7:07

At this point we started getting into some hills. The hills weren’t very bad. I can remember struggling with them last year, but this year I’ve been running on hilly courses for training a few times a week and felt pretty good.

Mile 8: 7:14

Passed through the covered bridge. Apparently the LVHM organizers love this thing since a picture of it is on the main page of the web site, it is listed as a race “feature” and is on the back of the medals. I’m not quite sure what the appeal is, for me it is just dark and 100 feet of inaccurate GPS signal.

Mile 9: 7:14

I was starting to drag a big mentally at this point. Mile 10 is typically the toughest place for me in a half-marathon since you are fatigued but can’t quite “smell the finish” yet.

Mile 10: 7:32

Mile 11: 7:04

Legs were starting to get very tired, felt like I had to work hard to maintain speed.

Mile 12: 7:21

Pushing harder trying to reel in some people ahead of me. Can hear the announcer and crowd coming from the stadium. Intensity is way higher than 1/2 mile ago. Glad this wasn’t a 14 mile race as I was getting really really fatigued in my legs. Lots of people now giving their all and jockeying for position.

There is a small hill just before the 13th mile ends as you enter into the stadium for the 3/4 lap finish. Was busy hating the hill but then saw a race clock reading 1:34:something and knew I would break 1:36 unless I really locked up. Goal for the next minute: don’t lock up.

Mile 13: 7:15 (felt way harder than that, I guess 12 miles of running earlier takes a toll)

Now I’m on the track with about 200 meters to go. Found a new set of gears in the legs and passed a couple of people as we all headed towards the finish line. Felt awesome. Tons of energy from the crowd. Stadium finishes rule.

Final .11 miles: 36 seconds

Chip time: 1:35:21 (new half-marathon PR by 3:34 and 8.5 minutes faster than last year. Sweet!)

Overall thoughts: I was really happy with the race. Nice even effort where all the splits were +/- 15 seconds of the average pace (no Harrisburg Half-Marathon Death March). I was a bit worried about my hamstring, but had no problems during or after the race. I felt very tired at the end but recovered quickly.  I am a little sore in my quads (on Monday morning), but not really worse for the wear.

MotionBased

(My Garmin Forunner was calculating the splits a little whacky so I ended up manually pressing the lap button a bunch of times at the mile markers.)

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 12:33 pm and is filed under running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.