Back home and finally had a few moments to sit down and gets some thoughts together on the Rite Aid Cleveland Half Marathon
-Everything went well with my hydration and dietary plan for the day before the race. I only had a couple small snacks during the day and then chicken breast for dinner, so I managed to eat far less than normal before a race. I think basing a large number of my races around mini-vacations makes me feel like I can eat whatever I want (and I will likely continue this trend at Disney), but I am glad that actually having a plan appeared to help.
-I woke up at 12:30 AM the night before the race with a splitting sinus migraine. I was nauseous, thought I was going to be sick, and believed I would be missing the race. I get migraines every so often, but this was out of the blue and I didn't think it would clear up quickly enough to be able to run. I was finally able to get back to sleep around 1:30. When I woke up at 5:15 the migraine was gone and everything felt great...
-Then I came downstairs and my sister informed me that it was snowing. We both were very seriously considering just going back to sleep. If either one of us were doing this race alone (and if I hadn't driven 6 hours to run it) I think we would have packed it in. But we sucked it up and got in the car and drove down to the race.
-Last year at the same race we waited 35 minutes for a port-a-john. This year I was able to use them twice with no wait. I'm not sure if it was better placement, higher volume, smaller crowd or a combination of those factors but it was nice to not have to wait forever.
-I am terrible at taking photos during races (both quality and quantity), but we took a couple before the race started. One as we were walking to the starting line:
And one in our Corral right outside Quicken Loans Arena:
-As previously mentioned, I am keeping the beard until I lose another 10 pounds. It's growing on me. (Bad pun partially intended)
-I'm a little too much of a Cleveland sports fan, so I forgive LeBron for prioritizing the Playoffs over running with us.
-The Old Navy fleece I had on in the first picture was a remnant of my days 70 pounds ago and was big for me then. I looked a little Belichick-ian with my gigantic throw away clothes.
-This was the best I've felt at the starting line in a long time. Was very confident I wasn't going to have any GI issues during the race. The weather was actually pretty decent at the start oft he race. It was cold, but the precipitation had stopped for about 15 minutes and it looked like the race might be in relatively good conditions
-I had every intention of starting off slow, building and trying to negative split. That went out the door with my 8:36 first mile. I knew I was going to fast, but I couldn't stop myself. I felt good and didn't feel like the pace was killing me. The first three miles went great. Still under 8:50 pace. Then we hit a pretty decent climb over a bridge and I started to realize I wasn't going to be able to maintain that pace. I slowed down and settled in with a few more miles at 9:00-9:15 pace.
-Then the weather changed. It started with some light rain, but I think we saw pretty much every variation of precipitation the rest of the way with few breaks. I saw others describe it as sleet or hail, and while I wouldn't really call what I saw hail I can see how that descriptor was used. I called it snow and while the ground was way to warm for any accumulation, it made the rest of the race really wet. The puddles increased and by Mile 7 my feet and clothes were soaked.
-Maybe I could have avoided a couple puddles and kept my shoes dry a little longer, but outside of wearing fewer clothes I don't think I could have avoided getting soaked. I had a compression shirt, long sleeve running shirt, stocking hat, compression socks, tights, and shorts on. Perhaps I could have worn less (particularly the compression socks), but I'm not elite and I have worn the same outfit in similar temperatures without precipitation and have been very comfortable.
-I believe my clothing added around 5-10 pounds during the race. I did not weigh anything and this is not scientific, but my clothes have never been anywhere near that heavy when removing them after a run.
-Between my too quick start and unexpected added weight, my race kind of unraveled from that point forward. The rest of my splits were over 10:00 and I even tossed in an 11:00+ at some point, but I managed to limp it in at 2:09:35 which is a new PR.
-I ran this race last year and the course felt different and nicer this year. I don't know Cleveland (or remember race routes) well enough to know what changed exactly, but last year I remember thinking the last 2 miles were virtually entirely an uphill climb. Good job by the race organizers switching that up for this year's race.
-I don't run a ton of races and know I have been in better shape than when I ran this race, but I am pretty pumped about getting the PR. It improves my POT over previous years and removes any pressure moving forward in future races to achieve a passable POT.
-That said, I wasn't very happy with the final month of my training cycle. I allowed myself too many excuses when missing runs or switching them to a cross-training workout. It's something to improve on moving forward, along with monitoring my eating habits, to achieve my desired improvement.
-I am going to add a race in August or September to give myself one more chance at improving my POT for Dopey 2017. I have the Indianapolis Monumental Half in November and plan on focusing really intensely on that race, but having something before then will be a nice addition to the schedule.
-Thanks to anyone still following along.
). Just... need... to find balance... YYuuummm ice cream! Good luck with the new training cycle!
