Rocky Mountain Half Marathon

On Sunday, June 14th, I ran the Rocky Mountain Half Marathon. This was my 2nd half marathon - my first being the 2008 Denver Marathon. Even though this wasn't really a target race I figured it would provide a good measure of my fitness and preparation for Pikes Peak. Well, let's hope not.

Let's cut right to the chase. I finished in 2:05:14. That's 22 seconds faster than the Denver Half Marathon. My goal was to break 2:00, and I fell quite a bit short. Instead of some mind-numbing boring stats, I think a really cute picture of Audrey would definitely spice up this blog.



Whew - I feel better already. How about one more?



OK - I know I said no boring stats, but come on - you didn't really think I would spare you of that joy, did you?

Here were my splits:

Mile 1: 8:55
Mile 2: 17:59 (9:04)
Mile 3: 27:13 (9:14)
Mile 4: 36:25 (9:12)
Mile 5: 45:46 (9:21)
Mile 6: 55:22 (9:36)
Mile 7: 1:04:57 (9:44)*
Mile 8: 1:14:31 (9:25)* (19:09 split between 6 - 8)
Mile 9: 1:23:58 (9:27)
Mile 10: 1:33:32 (9:34)
Mile 11: 1:42:57 (9:25)
Mile 12: 1:53:31 (10:34)
Finish: 2:05:14 (11:43 - 10:40 pace)

Somehow I missed the mile 7 marker, so the exact time for mile 7 and mile 8 is an estimate - mile 8 was pretty flat, mile 7 had a bit of a hill towards the beginning (17th and Federal). I think it would be easy to say from these splits that I started out too fast, since my first two miles were the fastest. Upon a few weeks for further reflection - yeah - I went out too fast. Mile 1 didn't feel that fast, but I should have really eased up when I passed it in sub-9:00. Oh well, there will be other races...

I also realized that I shouldn't be so tied to my watch, and I should just run. Once I hit the 9 mile mark, and new I wasn't going to break 2 hours, I got pretty discouraged. This is something I need to learn to deal with. For Pikes Peak I'm not going to memorize the exact time split for every last mile that I need in order to run sub-4 hours - this would just be counterproductive. I'm just going to run as smart as I can, push myself to the end, and see what my time is. I think I'll be a lot happier this way.

Overall I was pretty pleased with this run. I would have liked the run to have started at 7:00 instead of 7:30, it was pretty hot at the end. I also was a little confused because the course had a slight change in the early part that wasn't accurately reflected on the maps they passed out. It's not quite as nice a run as the Denver half marathon, as I don't really care too much for lollipop-style race courses, but I would definitely do it again.