Parkinson's Half Marathon 2018
What? Parkinson’s Half Marathon
Website: https://parkinsonshalfmarathon.com/
Strava activity: https://www.strava.com/activities/1494572498
Goal Description Completed? A Sub 1:30 No B 1:30-1:32 Yes
Training for this half started in the dead of winter in January. Kind of snuck up on me but realized I was 12 weeks out, so put together a makeshift plan that was based off of Higdon advanced half schedule. Overall had a really great training cycle over 12 weeks and listened to my body with the top end of distance at 40 miles a week with a couple cut back weeks. Ended up getting some knee pain a couple weeks out, but it was one of those “not getting better, not getting worse” types of pains so decided to keep at my training until after the race where I planned on a week off anyway. Overall I had 5 days of running and two rest days. Monday was rest, Tuesday mid distance, Wednesday easy recovery, Thursday rotated between tempo runs and 400’s, Saturday at “Marathon Pace” and Sundays were for long runs. Despite running through winter, I think I may have only missed one run and that was the week of the race and finished the entire schedule with 389 miles(race day included).
It. Was. Cold. I’m the nut bag that runs through out the winter in only shorts unless it gets below 0 degrees, so me saying it was cold is absolutely correct. Although it was 18 degrees~ at the start of the race, there was 10+MPH wind that made it absolutely freezing. I was second guessing myself on what to wear and almost considered actually running in tights. Other than that I did a nice easy 1 mile warm up with my sweats/wind breaking gear and felt OK. I’ve ran shorter distances at these temps, but never have done a half or more so I wasn’t exactly sure what to wear. Ended up with a tank/tshirt, fleece arm sleeves, doubled up gloves and just shorts. Got to the starting mat about 5 minutes early, so was easy to keep warm between the warm up and the start. I’m usually more nervous, but I think the cold really just cut a lot of expectations out before hand which was a relief.
Mile 1-3 The start was supposed to have an air horn go off, but the cold actually made it not work, thankfully the announcer was forward thinking and yelled it out! Race day adrenaline picked up and I hit out the gate at about a 6 flat, but soon jockeyed into position. I knew I wanted to start my first 3 miles at a relatively slower pace if possible to keep me from jumping into anaerobic way too quickly and I felt like I was able to keep myself in check. Pack ended up getting together and I kept behind two guys and just strided it out with them
Mile 4-6 During the next three miles I started getting in my own head. I knew if I wanted to hit under 1:30 I’d have to pace out at 6:52~ and sticking behind the two people I did seemed to be messing with me. I tried to surge past them a couple times, but I think they were not wanting to get passed themselves so I used that energy to surge and then ended up just dropping back. After several attempts at this and a disheartened mile 5(6:59 pace) I finally decided to make a strong push on mile 6 to get past them. It’s amazing how much more mentally strong I became after I started running my own race and not depending on keeping the two people ahead of me pacing out. I ended up hitting a 6:45 pace for mile 6 and dropped both of the people. Right before the mile 6 marker, there was a road crossing and one of the volunteers let me know that I was in 11th overall which gave me that little extra motivation!
Mile 7-10 Finally started pushing through the halfway point and I didn’t feel all too much taxed but since this was generally an out and back course, the turn around also turned into the wind. As I mentioned before it was a cold day and the wind made it even more so. I will say at first it was a good relief, but soon it was more of a hindrance than a help. I kept pushing through and was still on target, but one thing I didn’t realize was the fact that on the way out, there was a slight decline. What goes down, must go up! I had to flex some mental muscle through the smaller incline of the course but soon I got back to the volunteer who initially told me what place I was in and cheered me on to “go get the two guys ahead of you!”. I made another surge to catch up to the first guy before I hit mile 10 and passed him with a thumbs up, but unfortunately I could feel the bolts falling off.
Mile 11-13 Womp – the wheels completely fell off. I started feeling terrible through mile 11 and dropped down to a 7:00 pace. The cold was getting to me and I felt I was exerting a lot of energy just keeping warm. The feeling in my face was almost gone, I could barely keep my eyes open and I felt like I could just close them and fall asleep. I’ve felt that running through the winter before and it’s not a great mental place to be – I definitely ran at one point with my eyes closed for 5-10 seconds..smart, I know. Overall I think I was out of gas and it was the cold and also lack of nutrition at that point. I hadn’t trained at that pace during the training cycle with nutrition and I’ve had bad experiences before taking nutrition at that pace if I didn’t train with it. Mile 12 bombed a little more at a 7:11 pace followed by a 7:18 pace for mile 13. The last portion of mile 13 was up a smaller incline, but as most people know any kind of incline at that point is complete torture.
.1 Finish Luckily that incline to finish mile 13 gave me a downhill finish. I thought I heard someone behind me but at that point all I wanted to do was finish so I leaned forward and just let my body go. Ended up finishing at a 5:57 pace due to the downhill but I was spent and saw the clock already over 1:31. Ended up with an official finish time of 1:31:11(6:58) pace.
Got through the finish, grabbed my medal and a space blanket and promptly sat on the grass. I was spent and didn’t want to move but as I got up, my abs cramped! I didn’t realize how crampy I was until I finished and actually was able to process any pain I had. The knee held up though, which I was thankful for! Waiting for the results I made sure to bundle up and finally got a stomach to eat, which is great because they are known for their great spread of food! Once they announced the awards were available I was happy to see that I was 10th overall, 8th male and 1st in my age group! I had the lingering thought during the last couple miles of how hard it can be in my age group as a male(30-34) and the amount of times that I’ve finished in the top 10 and still never received a medal! Overall I felt I ran a great race and my splits were really consistent and showed exactly what fitness level I was. Could a warmer day have proved to make a better race? Would it have been more beneficial if I trained with nutrition? Maybe, but either way I got an extra medal and set a great start for 2018!
Mile Time 1 6:54 2 6:54 3 6:56 4 6:53 5 6:59 6 6:45 7 6:51 8 6:50 9 6:55 10 6:53 11 7:00 12 7:11 13 7:15 13.1 0:45 (5:57pace)
This post was generated using the new race reportr, a tool built by /u/BBQLays for making organized, easy-to-read, and beautiful race reports.
Don’t forget to follow me on my other profiles!
instagram.com/radrunnerdad
twitter.com/radrunnerdad
Strava
Parkinson’s Half Marathon 2018 was originally published on RadRunnerDad
