One more race down today. I ran the Western Pacific Half Marathon today, a great event put on by Brazen Racing. Last year I ran the American River Parkway Half Marathon and got a 10:00 pace. I was very happy with that pace because I was able to run the entire thing, and it was great for my first race. Today I was shooting for something between 9:20-9:30, and that was about right. I ended up with a 9:28 pace and almost a full 7 minutes off my time from last year.
The race went pretty well although I think I may have started off a bit too fast. Right around mile 8, my stomach started gurgling a bit and I thought I was going to have to find a bathroom quick, but I was able to run through it and it went away. I also found that around mile 11, the adrenaline really kicked in – which was helpful naturally. I ended up getting 8th out of 19 in my age bracket (30-34) and with a time of 2:04:05.
So I am doing the Bay to Breakers in a month and then I’m thinking of signing up for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in October. For this race, I think I’ll switch up to Hal Higdon’s Intermediate training plan, and see if I can’t improve my pace even more. If you want to check out the differences between this year and last year’s half marathons, you can check out the stats below.
Have you thought about cycling and doing centuries or triathalons?