Race Report - Boulder Spring Half Marathon

Completed, Time - 1:36:00 (my watch)

Notes: This was my second half marathon, first one was back in September. Weather was very chilly, overcast and windy, and about mid thirties. My main goal was just to run faster than in september (which was around 1:44:00 or so).

Strategy wise I was just trying to stay cool first the first 3 miles, keep it around 7:30-8:00 pace and get into a groove. Tried to let all the 10k people go by and stay in my pace. Essentially until the half way turnaround I kept about a 7:30 pace. At mile 4 I was around 30:40 or so and feeling amazing. Had tons of energy and felt like I was just out for an easy trail run. Ran into a pack of four runners or so around mile 5 and paced with them...seemed like a pretty good group of experienced guys, and we paced eachother through the half way point and the next few miles.

After the turn-around the race got fun. Our little group picked it up to a consistent 6:50-7:00 pace and took turns leading the group. This lasted up until about mile 9, after that we split up and everyone kinda went their own way, with most of them falling back a little bit. I was still feeling awesome at this point and kept pushing the pace. At mile 10 I knew I only had a 5k to go and pushed it a little harder. With 2 miles to go you could see the end of the course down by the reservoir, and at this point I just tried to lock in my form and make it hurt as much as I could before the finish. Held at pretty steady at 6:30 or so pace I think...didn't get passed by anyone in the second half of the race which was nice, and I felt noticeably stronger than last year in the latter parts of the race.

A nice little mental cue I employed in the second half to help my form came from "Born to Run." Focused on easy, smooth, quick. When I felt my stride go to shit I worked on making it feel easy and natural. Once I had that down, make it smoother. After that, speed it up. Repeated that over and over. Pretty simple, but it actually works.

Body-wise, even after the race I felt great. Knees didn't hurt, ankles/feet didn't hurt (although the arch of my flats were starting to rub a little and I had a few hot spots on the ball of my foot), and in general my body felt well prepared. I attribute alot of the improvement to simply not being a newbie this time around, but also to the style of training I have been doing. Experimenting with lifting barefoot, working on single-leg strength/stability, and some of the smaller details has really helped eliminate some of those minor aches and discomforts. Whether the CF/CFE approach really physically works, who knows. All I know is that so far I feel like it has worked, and sometimes that is just as important. Thinking back on Tabata sprints and hard metcons made going out for a run seem relatively easy. Granted half marathons aren't exactly difficult feats, the crossfit approach has made training for longer races infinitely more enjoyable compared to the LSD days...that's good enough for me.

Nutrition: not really important enough in this short of a race, but I just stuck to water at all the stations then had a banana in the second half. Picked up a Gu packet, but I don't ever use them when I train so avoided eating it and didn't feel like I need a pick-me-up. Gonna eat whatever the rest of the day.

Lessons learned:

• When in doubt, wear gloves.
• Need to find a good way of taping the parts of my feet where hot spots pop up. This will be a must for a full marathon.
• Negative splits are the way to go. Chill for the first half.
• Find people to run with.
• Easy, smooth, quick.
• Keep doing pistols and stability work - makes my knees much happier on race day.