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Monthly Archives: April 2012

2012 RunCbus 10 Miler

My hopes for the race was to run a faster per-mile-pace than the 1/2 in Athens:

I had been warned about the hills during the second half of the race. I was ready for that. BUT, during my training I have been taking in water every 2 miles if I went longer than 6. The 10 miler only had 3 waterstops, plus one impromptu one at mile 9-something.

Other than the water stops – let me regress here again: the first one at mile 3.14, second one at mile 5, last one at mile 6.89, plus the impromptu one (where they handed out bottles of water) – I am not complaining. The course was challanging with a visible steady incline from mile 8.5 to 9.5. I checked my Garmin and the elevation changed 130 ft in that mile. The Gamin actually showed an incline from 7.5 to 9.5 but I didn’t really notice it until 8.5. I managed to hold on to an 11 min/mile pace from mile 8 to 9 and then ran a sub 10 the last mile.

The great thing about the race was that my daughter and her boyfriend watched me run. It was nice having them there; it was a special treat. 🙂 The other great thing was the nice New Balance jacket I received for signing up. 🙂 (No medal at the finish line though; can’t have it all)

To make a long story short: My overall mile pace during the Athens’ half was 10:26; it was 10:23 for the 10 miler. Mission accomplished!

Three more weeks until the Capital City Half Marathon!

PR! – Athens Half Marathon April 1, 2012

02 Apr

I entered the race just for fun, to be with friends who love to run like I do (most of them a bit faster than I am). Turns out the stars were alligned just right and a PR was bound to happen.

The hubby drove to Athens (Ohio) with me to cheer me on. That doesn’ t happen to often and I was glad to have him a long. Race packet pick up was prior to the race about a 1/2 mile from the starting line. The place where we picked up the packet was also the finish line. With the packet picked up and bib attached we were off to the starting line, walking through the beautiful Ohio University campus.

Starting Line

The course, which is overall very flat, starts with a very steep downhill part. I was a bit worried about my knee and calf/achilles, after the experience in Mississippi and the following injuries I had. But my body held up! I ran into an old running buddy, Kelly, shortly after the start. She is much faster than I am, but just getting back into running after spitting out her second child. We ran together for a while. She was a tad bit too fast for me, and I dropped back…eventually I got into my stride and I caught back up to her. We, including a runner from West Virginia that Kelly had befriended, ran most of the second half of the race together.

Mile 5 - Kelly is a little behind me (in pink)

At the turn-around point it occurred to me that I could PR if I kept that pace up the second half. However, the first half of the race was on a slight decline, meaning the returning part would be at an incline. But with Kelly at my side, happily cheering me on and keeping my mind occupied with life stories, we were still going strong at mile 10.

The miles just went by so fast, but I did notice that we had slowed down just a little bit. Mile 13 however, made up for it, running my second fastest mile in that race. We entered the stadium with about 600 yards to go. After the first 200 were behind us, we could see the clock, and Kelly said “You got this!”. She then shouted to our friends, who were waiting for us, “She is going to PR!” and they started cheering like crazy. So loud as a matter of fact that I could hear them all the way on the other side of the track!