“Running is an addiction (if you’re doing it right)” ~Casey Neistat
In this post, I would like to share my experience running the Go Green - St. Patrick’s day Half Marathon last weekend (3/18).
Until March 9th, I don’t have any clue about this race. Thanks Tyler Graf for sharing this race and expressing his interest in having a time target for 1:30 finish. Oh my good lord (that was my mind voice). I have always loved running fast but then 1:30 seemed too much out of my league and agreed to race but my realistic goal was 1:35ish.
And the day came, weather was perfect for running. Parking lot was a good ~1 mile away from the start line. I had to return to the car mid-way as I forgot my race bib :|. After all it’s a good warmup. I’m glad that race start was 10 mins delayed due to the parking situation.
I was running with 1:35 pacer. Tyler was running with me for first 2.5 miles and he increased his pace to meet his goad. I decided to hang out with the 1:35 pace group. All went well until I stopped at the aid station for some electrolytes. They didn’t have any electrolytes and my pacer was well ahead of me. Next 2-3 miles was a struggle. I wish I carried some electrolytes.
Running by myself, only thing that kept me going was cheering the runners in the opposite direction :). I badly wanted someone to pace me to keep up by pace. Then came some unknown runner! She was at the right pace for me to follow. I was following her until mile ~10. Trail was getting busy as I was approaching closer to the finish line and this brought some extra energy in me. I decided not to push very hard as I felt like my quads were cramping. I kept my pace steady and sprinted like a horse in the final 0.5 miles and you can’t beat the feel of a STRONG finish!
Few things that keeps me going in these tough races,
Thank the volunteers and supported along the way
Cheer up the fellow runner
Keep that SMILE on. I had supporters calling this out explicitly more than once “You still have that smile!”. That just gives an instant energy booster.
Less often I run with time goal, even I do - Do what your body says and not what your watch says.
End of the day, It was a TOUGH race and I achieved what I wanted to :) and I smashed by PR by 4 minutes :D (I still have lot to improve on)
Thanks to Tyler, Ronan, Piyush, Shweta and the whole ILP group who make my runs lot more fun :)
You might be interested in this One foot in front of the other. #shameless #plug