Once again with the half-marathon
I promise this will be my last post related to the 2006 Vancouver Half-Marathon.
The finish line video is finally available! If you’d like to watch me cross the finish line go to the Vancouver Marathon page and enter a time of 2:15:00, select Half and press View. You should see me speed across the finish line on the left side of the screen. My first thought when I saw the video was “ouch” because I remember how much my legs hurt at the end. All I could think about was putting one foot in front of the other and getting to the finish line as fast as possible even if my form wasn’t pretty.
Watch me run
Allison shot a short video clip of me running at mile 4 of the half-marathon. You can view it here. I’m the one in the light blue hat and the salmon coloured vest. You can hear Jeff and Allison cheering me on. Feel free to cheer with them!
Vancouver Half-Marathon 2006
I ran the Vancouver half-marathon on Sunday in a chip time of 2:10:42. The race went really well and I’m thrilled with my result. I originally thought I’d start the race at about a 10:30 min/mile pace. I guess I was a little excited at the start because I started out faster than that. I recorded most of my split times and they’re listed below.
Mile Split Total 1 10:03.3* 0:10:03 2 10:03.3* 0:20:07 3 10:07.0 0:30:14 4 09:52.6 0:40:06 5 09:51.8 0:49:58 6 10:19.8 1:00:18 6.55 1:06:06 (half-way) 7 10:08.3 1:10:26 8 10:30.9^ 1:20:57 9 10:36.0^ 1:31:33 10 09:41.0 1:41:14 11 09:51.0* 1:51:06 12 09:51.0* 2:00:57 13.1 09:44.9 2:10:42 * averaged since I missed mile markers 1 and 11 ^ these miles included the climb up to Prospect Point
These times include approximately one minute of walking per mile. I held pace until mile 5 and then slowed down through Stanley Park. I’m not surprised by this since the course narrowed at mile 6, the pitch become more variable and we had a period of heavier rain (it rained most of the time I was on course). This meant avoiding puddles and being a little bit more aware of your footing. Prospect Point hill slowed me down in miles 8 and 9 but I’m proud to say that I ran up the whole thing. I then picked up the pace on the run out of Stanley Park and through to the finish line. My fastest split was the last 1.1 miles during the mad dash to the finish. My legs started screaming up Prospect Point and never really recovered. The last 5 km were pretty painful but I just dug in and finished strong. I can honestly say I don’t think I could have run any harder. I actually ran a negative split race which means I ran the second half of the race faster than the first.
Running this race was not about comparing myself to others but just for fun, here’s how I ranked. Ranks are based on gun times. My gun time was 2:15:01 (so it took more than 4 minutes for me to cross the starting line!) which placed me 3398/6719 overall, 1727/4345 among females and 342/699 among females aged 25-29.
I owe a huge thank you to Jeff and Allison for getting up early and cheering me on. I really appreciated seeing familiar faces along course. All the spectators on course were great though. Our bibs had our first names on them so anyone could yell your name out and cheer you on. That was nice.
For those of you who know my friend Leah, she ran the full marathon in less than 5 hours! Awesome.
Interestingly running the half-marathon did not immediately want to me start training for a full marathon! The half was hard! It’s too early to make commitments but I think my next big goal may be the Seattle half-marathon in November. I’d love to get my time below 2 hours. I’m not sure how realistic this would be as a goal but it’s something to think about. Until then I’m going to keep up with my running and maybe do the 8-K Torchlight Run at the end of July or something like that.
Half-marathon training – Week 18 – Off I go!
Yesterday I ran 2 miles and that officially ended my half-marathon training program. My week 18 taper mileage was 9 (4+3+2) miles. Now all that’s left to do is run the race on the Sunday. I woke up this morning with a healthy case of butterflies in my stomach. I think it’s anticipation and excitment more than nerves though. We’re heading to Vancouver this afternoon and the adventure begins from there. Off I go!
Half-marathon training – what actually happened
This is what happens when a statistician has tracked all her training for the past 18 weeks – she graphs it!
In order to make this graph I had to convert cross training activities to mile equivalents which were roughly what level of training I thought each ultimate game, weight training session, swim etc was equal to.
I ran a total of 276.5 miles or 445 km in training (not including all the cross-training). That’s greater than the driving distance from Ottawa to Toronto (431 km according to google maps)!
Half-marathon training – Week 17 – Vancouver training weekend
This was the last real training week before my half-marathon. My total week 17 mileage was 20 miles (5+5+10) along with some swimming. I’ve stopped weight training at this point because I don’t want to tire my muscles out any more than absolutely necessary.
I was in Vancouver this past weekend with my friend Leah (who is running the marathon next weekend) watching our fellow Thunderstaters Jeff, Kyle and Fozz play with the UDub men’s ultimate team at Regionals. Leah and I spent most of Saturday watching the boys play frisbee (in the rain – we’re such hard core fans) so we didn’t get around to running until Saturday evening. Originally we were planning on doing 9 miles but I think in the end we did about 10. We managed to chit chat through the run which means we were going at a good training pace. We didn’t eat dinner until after 9pm at which point went to the Banana Leaf and polished off deep-fried spring rolls, steemed rice (our waiter though we’d only need one order but we assured him we could eat two), a chicken dish and a green bean dish. We still weren’t full after that so we went to Tim Horton’s for Nanaimo bars and hot chocolate!
On Sunday we drove parts of the half-marathon and marathon courses. We were mostly interested in seeing the hills. The Prospect Point Hill doesn’t look too bad. It’s steep in parts but it does flatten out at the top and then there’s a lovely downhill stretch after that. The rest of the course is definitely hillier than my usual flat training around Green Lake. It was exciting to see the marathon banners hanging along the Burrard Bridge and signs up around the city warning of road closures for the race.
This upcoming week is my taper week. This basically means rest before the big race. I’m going to run 4, 3 and 2 miles on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I’m not going to go crazy on the carbo loading but I will be having pasta for dinner on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. We leave for Vancouver on Friday. Leah and I are very lucky because Allison and Jeff are going to be cheering us on during the race. We’re going to plot our ETAs at various points along the course so hopefully we’ll actually meet up with them enroute.
6 days to go. I am now checking the Vancouver long range forecast several times a day. Let’s all hope for cool cloudy conditions with no rain!
Half-marathon training – Week 16 – The 10 miler
This week I did the longest training run on my schedule: the 10 miler. Technically it wasn’t on the schedule until next week but I really just wanted to do it this week. It went pretty well – 107 minutes of fun!
I used this run to test out my race day hydration and feeding schedule:
- Pre-run: a bowl of oatmeal with honey and lots of water at least an hour before the run
- Run: a few ounces of water every mile and a gel pack with lots of water every 4 miles
- Post-run: 500 mL of gatorade and a banana right away, then more water
I’ll have more pre-run lead time on race day so I might also have a banana with breakfast. I haven’t tested out the sport beverage that will be available on course so I think I might just stay away from that.
So my week 16 total mileage was 20 miles (5+5+10) plus the stationary bike and weights on Wednesday and an ultimate game this afternoon.
If anyone is interested in reading some good running articles I highly recommend John Bingham’s column No Need for Speed from Runner’s World. One of my favourite articles is 13.1 and Done. Here’s an exert:
First off, the race isn’t half of a full marathon; it’s a full half-marathon. I’ve seen many marathoners, myself included, take the distance lightly, thinking it can be knocked out as a training run. It can’t. Some 10-K specialists think the half is like a really, really, long 10-K course. It isn’t. It isn’t like any other distance at all, not even its predecessor the 20-K. It is a race distance unto itself.
That’s right folks. I’m running a full half-marathon.
Half-marathon training – Week 15 – Training for Prospect Point
Earlier this week I got an email from the Vancouver Marathon with a bunch of links and information about the big day. One of the links was to the final course map (pdf). If you look at the bottom of the map you’ll see the elevation profile on which you’ll see a VERY BIG hill. The climb to Prospect Point is 200 feet covered in less than a mile! I knew this hill was on the course but I don’t think I’d really considered it in my training before.
This was a step back week so my Saturday “long run” was only 7 miles. I figured the shorter distance would be a perfect time to try to climb hill similar to the one on the course. It turns out there’s a hill near my place that has a 188 foot elevation covered in 0.9 miles. I bike up this hill on the way home from school and it kills me every time. Needless to say I was a little worried about running up it. Well running up it was way easier than biking up it. Probably because I’m in better running shape than biking shape. I think the Vancouver hill is steeper but making it up this hill without too much difficulty was a huge confidence booster.
For the record the final mileage for week 15 was 21.5 miles (5+5+7+4.5).
Three weeks to go!
Half-marathon training – Week 14 – Ultimate is different from running!
On Saturday I set a new personal distance record and ran 9 miles (14.5 km). My total mileage for the week was 19 miles. This is a bit less than last week because instead of running on Sunday I played in an ultimate frisbee game. I discovered that playing ultimate is much different from long distance running! It’s a lot of sprinting and quick changes of direction and my legs aren’t used to that anymore! On the plus side I think both my foot speed and overall fitness have improved so that has to help my ultimate game.
One month until the big race
The half-marathon is one month from today! My training is going really well (thus far I’ve avoided major injury and I’m right on schedule) but now I’m starting to think more about race day logistics. I of course want to be super prepared. Here are a few of the things that I’ve been thinking about (usually during a run actually) over the past week.
What am I going to wear during the race? My plan is to bring a wide selection of running clothing with me to Vancouver and make a final decision the night before the race. I want to be prepared for any weather.
What should I eat the morning of the race? I think I’ll bring instant oatmeal with me to the hotel and hope there’s a coffee maker to get hot water out of. I might eat a banana too but the fact of the matter is I’ll probably be too nervous to eat much and I really don’t want to cramp up because of a full stomach.
What will I do to warm up? Very little. I’m not going to waste a mile or two of running on warm up. I’ll need that mile during the race! I’ll try to keep my muscles warm but there will be no big warm up like before a 5km.
What pace am I going to run at? I’ve said many times that I don’t have a time goal for the race. I just want to finish. That being said I still need to decide what pace to aim for. There are a number of calculators on the web where you enter a previous shorter distance race time and it tells you what a reasonable half-marathon time would be. I’ve done this and all the half-marathon paces seem too quick! My current plan is to aim for 11:30 – 12 min/mile over the first half of the race and then go from there. It’s better to start slow and finish fast. Or maybe just start slow and finish slow!
What am I going to eat/drink during the race? I’ve got my favourite brand of gels selected so there’s my source of calories. My plan is to take in a gel at miles 5 and 10. I’ll probably just stick with water in terms of hydration but there will be sports drink available on course. I’m going to have to test out the brand of sports drink first though because I have a sensitive stomach while running.
How am I going to meet up with people after the race? OK this one has me stressed out. My sister is going to come cheer me on and my friend Leah is running the marathon. There’s talk that a few other people from Seattle might also come up so I imagine finding everyone after the marathon ends might be a little difficult.
What am I going to do when this is all over? Short term I’m going to take some time off from running. Maybe a week or two depending on how I’m feeling. Then I’m going to prepare to run a 10km with my sister in mid-June. That will be more about maintaining fitness than gaining it though so I don’t think it will be a big deal. After that who knows.