Eugene Half Marathon Race Report

I feel like my race reports are getting boring! I have been running a lot of races this spring, I haven't had any spectacular results or triumphs... so I am going to try this a little different.

In fact, I tried doing a lot of stuff differently recently. I kind of adopted Petra/George Costanza "Opposite" thing. You know, do the opposite of what you normally do. Go against your instincts. So in really minor ways I switched it up. I'm usually pretty anxious and obsessive and lately I'm loosey goosey! The training was nonspecific- no schedule, whatevs on the pace.. and that was working well. Then for the race- I didn't pack until the morning we left, I had pizza and a beer the night before the race, I tried on the race t-shirt before the race (it was too big), stuff like that. The good news is, it didn't make my race any worse! The bad news is, it didn't make it any better.

I finished in an unoriginal 1:45:51 (8:05 ave). I guess it's cool that I'm consistent and that is a good time for sure, but it kind of turns out less isn't more. I have got to get serious with my training. More importantly, I think I really need to clean up my eating and drinking and get in better shape. Ugh!

Anyway, the half marathon course was more difficult than I had imagined, but it was a fabulous race. Gorgeous little green Oregon college town and Everyone is all about running. Good beer, good people, amazing runners, Hayward Field, you just can't beat it. The course was good but there was a long-ish climb in the early miles and a big f#&*er of a hill in mile 9. It was lightly raining for my whole race but let up right after and the sun came out to cook the full marathon runners a little. I think you should expect rain at this event. It rains a lot here.

I really felt strong the whole time and the miles kind of flew by. I got pretty tired by like mile 9 and just gutted it out. Here are my splits, I actually had some good speed going I just didn't hold it up in the end.

1 8:09
2 7:40
3 7:49
4 8:00
5 8:14
6 7:52
7 7:51
8 8:04
9 8:21 (hill)
10 8:12
11 8:23
12 8:08
13 8:15
0.1 :50

1:45:51
(8:05 ave)

Zach had an INCREDIBLE race. He is such a smart and fast runner. Hopefully he'll post his splits too, but I can tell you he PR'd big time with 1:34:14. :O Merlin's beard! (that's my new saying)

So I have a tri training schedule ready to begin in one week. I'm going to use this coming week to let my legs recover from the race, get my schedules finalized and printed out and stuff, outline my diet a little and figure out how I'm going to survive without Cupcake Jones, etc etc. Get my shit in gear. It's transition time! (get it, that's a triathlon joke)

Thanks for reading!! Congratulations to Aron on an amazing marathon finish today too. It was great to see her and her family. Wish we could have hung out longer! Alisa and Amy also drove down to cheer everyone on which was awesome. Alisa's sign said "Toenails are for sissies" Love it. Thanks guys! :)

Garfield, etc

I am going to do another random thoughts type post here since I'm so far behind updating and I have a very full brain. First, here are my training updates for this week:

Monday: run
4.0 miles/8:55 average pace
Easy run on the waterfront

Wednesday: run
6.0 miles/8:02 average pace
Waterfront

Friday: run
4.0 miles/31:14/7:49 average pace
Forest Park

That's pretty much it! I did NO swimming and NO biking. I did resume the pushup challenge though! This stuff will be covered in my random thoughts below. And we're off!

- Pushups: I got all the way up to Week 5 (in like 10+ weeks, I've been repeating the weeks 2-3 times each) and got up to a max of 40 pushups. The, I took basically two weeks off. So this week I stepped back to week 4 and completed it no problem. Ok, actually the first day was really tough, but today was great and I did 45 for my max!!

- Circle of fat: Ugh, I'm once again feeling heavy and unfortunately the scale is confirming this. For the past few years I have this annoying cycle (if I knew how to insert a graphic I would really make this a circle flow chart): Realize I've gained weight and feel bad/sad, Get motivated and cut back on my junk food and track my food and eat super healthy, lose weight, feel so happy and self-confident!, reward my hotness with beer and fries, the weight drifts up but who cares, I'm healthy, Eat recklessly, Realize I've gained weight and feel bad/sad. I'm back at the start of that cycle right now. I should note that this whole cycle takes place in the range of like 5-8 lbs but I think it is still unhealthy. Plus, I bet that range moves up in baby steps in the coming years! I need to be vigilant to stay healthy. Can I get an amen ladies? Anyone?

- Running is great! Despite being a chunker, I have been running fast lately! For some reason I've been keeping a sub-8 pace pretty comfortably. I start off about a minute slower, then pick it up. I think it's because I've been running lower mileage with no schedule whatsoever. I've just been running how I feel. And that's been like 25-28 mpw all at moderate intensity. For me, about a minute faster per mile than I usually run for higher mileage/marathon training. I think it is a good thing! I hope it is specifically good for half-marathon racing, because I am racing a half marathon this weekend. It will be my third so far this year (really?) and I'd like to see an improvement.

- All this slacking and indulging in delicious local grub and brews and running how I feel has been awesome. But, I think I'm getting close to a turning point. Gotta get this serious triathlete thing going.

- Having a job is awesome. I get to organize stuff and play with maps all day and I get off at 3:30. Sweet x 3. Oh, and I also love dressing nice! It's so fun after feeling like a broke slob for the better part of a year.

- Garfield: I made delicious lasagne for dinner tonight. Am I the only one who thinks of Garfield every time I eat lasagna? I enjoyed him.

- Swine flu: WTF?!

- Lost: WTF?!? So awesome.

- Blogs: I have been falling behind on commenting on blogs but I have been reading them! You are all awesome. Good luck to everyone racing this weekend: Aron in Eugene, Judi, and Michele, and Amy in Cincinnati, and Sun Runner in Cleveland, Susan in Wisconson, and everyone I'm forgetting! Congrats on all the recent success too. You are all very inspiring!


Well I will wrap it up. Thanks for reading and look out for my Eugene half marathon race report after Sunday! :)