I can't remember the last time I ran a half marathon with an attempt to race hard. I guess that's why I was nervous this week since I knew the Victory Half Marathon would be a leg killer. My goal was a 1:50 half, and considering that most of my runs have been between a 9-10 minute mile, I wasn't sure if I could sustain the required 8:24 pace for that long.
MAF training has really slowed me down. I don't regret doing it, and I practice some of it still and believe in the method. However, I don't think it's for everyone. I find a moderate approach of mostly easy and recovery runs with some mixed hard and medium efforts is doing well for me. I'm not sure if this is normal, but my legs often feel best after a tough work out from opening my strides up. It feels great to go fast!!! It becomes a problem is when you don't do the rest of your runs slow enough and injury becomes a more common visitor.
Let's skip to the race talk. I signed up for Brazen Racing's Victory Half Marathon since it was part of a challenge called the Breeze to Victory. If you did both the Bay Breeze race and the Victory race, you were given a connecting medal piece and it became one giant epic piece. Brazen has a couple of these throughout the year, and they're fun to do. You don't need to do the half distances, you could do two 10k's if you wanted.
This year's Victory race was the Inaugural race, and had a 5k, 10k and a half marathon distance. The cost was $54 for the 5k, $61 for the 10k and $77 for the Half Marathon and includes a race shirt, goodie bag, and a lot of really great post race food. It was in Richmond, CA along the bay and started at the Richmond Marina. This is where 142 Victory ships were built for part of World War II and you can still see the Red Oak Victory ship. There is a lot of history in this area, and I definitely want to go back to check out some of the museums.
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| A shot of the sunrise from the marina. You can see the victory ship over to the right. |
The race started at 8:00 for the half marathoners, so Jon and I rolled out of bed at 5:30am to get to the race at 7:00am so we had time to grab our bibs and do our two mile warm up. It's still hard to get up that early...but it's always nice to greet the sun.
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| Our lazy dog wondering what we are doing up so early |
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| headed over the bay bridge for the sunrise |
There seemed to be ample parking, and people really started rolling in closer to 7:30. I made a quick stop at the porta-potties and noted that there weren't a lot of them, maybe 8 or so? Since I had a 2 miler warm up scheduled, I ended up going at a bathroom a half mile away that was off the course by the Marina when it was closer to the starting time. Good thing too, since there was a lengthy line by that time.
We met up with some of our friends that registered when we lined up at the starting line, and I cozied up to the 1:50 half marathon pacer since that was my goal. The snapped a pic of me in line...I had no idea my sunglasses were that crooked.
I love it when races have pacers and I find that "chasing the rabbit" is much easier for me and I can kind of mentally tune out and let someone else do all the thinking. Of course it doesn't always work that way, and you're putting a lot of faith into a stranger. This race had SO many pacers going in five minute increments.
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| I'm perfectly shadowing the 1:50 pacer...but you can see Jon! |
The race started out fast and I was really surprised to see that our first mile was at an 8:05 pace. It felt unusually easy for me (it felt like a 9:00 min mile) and I wanted to push ahead. I knew better though, and did not want to go too hard at the beginning. The pacer seemed strong and confident, and her quick and easy strides were mentally comforting. It seemed effortless for her, and probably was, considering that she said her half marathon PR was something like 1:31.
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| Clearly this is early on in the race when everyone is still happy |
A quick blurb about our excellent pacer, Kiyoko. When you aren't completely distracted by her gigantic and obviously powerful calves, you'd realize she was super sweet and kept a steady conversation with Jon the entire time. She's part of the Tri Valley Running Club, and they were the official pacers at the race. While the pace seemed fast at times, ranging from 8:05-8:24, she paced a near perfect race coming in just under 1:50. A giant thank you for her for your time! Also, I should note that I just found out that she paced basically a PERFECT race just 4 seconds under the 1:50 time. AMAZING.
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| Thanks Kiyoko! |
The course was super flat and easy to run on. It was mostly pavement. The hardest part for me was the sun exposure. It was only in the 60's, but I don't do well with sun. It really elevates my heart rate, and true to the majority of the bay trail, there were NO TREES. There was also a small stretch that was mildly unpleasant since it was literally right next to the freeway.
I felt really strong until the turn around at mile 7. There was a small loop that had you veer off onto a dirt trail that went up this small grassy hill onto uneven dirt. It really wasn't much, but it was so drastically different and unexpected from the rest of the course, so it tired me out. Our pacer rolled through that section without missing a beat, and I was really pushing to keep up with her 8:15/8:10 pace on that hill.
Since this was supposed to be a hard effort race, I really wanted to use most of the energy that I had in me. I decided to break away from the pace group halfway through mile 10. I assigned Jon the task of keeping me at a faster than comfortable pace, and to push me toward the end. Thanks, my love!
In miles 11 and 12 I progressed to an 8:05 min mile, and lastly an 8:01 min mile. He did a great job at pulling me along, and I really appreciate him sticking with me the entire way even though the pace was slightly faster than he was hoping since he had to do another 9 miles after for a total of 24 miles.
We finished strong, and I was able to open up the legs and sprint through the giant brazen sign at the end. My official time was 1:49:08, which I am pretty thrilled with. My Garmin says that I went 13.25 miles total for an average of 8:15 pace. I was left wondering if I maybe could have gone faster since the first part felt so easy to me, but I really think the strategy worked out for me this time. I snagged the 3rd place medal for my age group, W30-34 - just narrowly beating the 4th by FOUR seconds. I placed 12th for women's overall, and 52nd for the runners and there were 282 runner's total for the half.
Reluctantly, I headed back out for another 5 miles to get my complete 20 miler done for the day. It was really...really difficult. I didn't see a lot of runners trickling in like the Bay Breeze race so I guess there were a lot of fast runners at this race.
Once I got back, I came through and attacked the finish line food station. Let's see...I had a plate full of fruit, a bagel with cream cheese, a cup of goldfish, a cup of cherry pie, two rice krispie treats, and then I grabbed this packaged brownie which I proceeded to smash into a pulp for the rest of the day due to having no pockets. They had other food too though, most notable were the It's-It's ice cream sandwiches which I couldn't partake since lactose isn't my friend.
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| So much fooood |
Then I remembered we have access into the Employee Mountain Hardwear store that was just next door to the start/finish line. This store is pretty exclusive, and has really great deals. Everyone with a Victory Race bib was allowed access, and Jon and I walked away with a few goodies. Another backpack that I probably don't need. I have this thing for backpacks...
Overall, it was another really great run from Brazen! I did overhear that they ran out of connector medals which I imagine would be a disappointment if you ran both courses. I'm sure they are handling it, but I didn't see them checking for names when handing them out. Luckily we were able to grab ours. I'd definitely be back to do this one again!
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| The Medals! |
