Seaside Half Marathon Race Recap- Race 2/14

So, my race goal changed a bit when I got a little registration happy and signed up for 14 half marathons in 2014. Kind of threw off the whole 13 half marathons in 13 months, but it's a bigger goal and I am so ready to kick ass and take names!

This month's race was the Seaside Half Marathon. It was an out and back, mostly flat course along the beautiful coast.

I went to the packet pick up yesterday. My number was #666. I text my mom, my sister and Patrick the number I got. My mom's response: "Ask for another number!" Patrick's response: "Hell yeah!" and Rachel's response: "The devil is going to tear up the course!"

I decided to play it up and add devil horns to my outfit.

I  got up early this morning in order to make sure I was ready to go. I left a little over an hour and half before the race started in order to make sure I got a parking spot. It took about a half hour to get there, giving me plenty of time to walk around and warm up my legs.
 

And of course take some pictures... It's a good thing too, because I didn't take any during the race.

I started the race using 30:30 intervals. We ran along the bike path and I was concerned about the starting and stopping with the people around me, but I guess I started in a good place because I don't think I annoyed too many people. I was very conscious about the people around me.

 

It was a pretty uneventful race, to be truly honest. After what happened at the Camarillo half marathon in January I was a little concerned about my goal of PRing, but I still wanted to make that my goal. I decided to up my intervals from 30:1 to 30:30 because I had been practicing with those intervals and knew that it would be my best chance to PR.

 

My current best is 2:39:00 from the Arroyo Creek half marathon. I really pushed myself today because I have been very comfortable with my 12:30 pace. I knew I had to be around a 12 minute mile consistently in order to PR. I made it to the halfway point pretty easily. I decided at that point to start running 1:30:30:30, so I would run 1 minute, walk 30 seconds, run 30 seconds, walk 30 seconds and repeat. That worked pretty well to keep my pace consistent because my running was getting slower, but as long as I upped the amount of time I ran it worked itself out.

 

I hit a small wall around mile 8. Nothing too bad though. At the Camarillo half I ended up needing to text a few of my "people" for support. I needed that extra boost, that reminder that I enjoy doing this. Today it was more of a minute or two of questioning myself and my goal of a PR. Before I knew it I was already at mile 9 and at that point I only had 4 miles to go.

 

I've found that I usually hit my wall around mile 8 and I would love to work on that. That's definitely more of a mental road block for me than a physical one. It's at that point where I realize that I'm over halfway, have already gone 8 miles but I still have 5 to go. 5 miles just seems like so many when you've already gone 8.

 

I text my mom at mile 10 that I was a 5K away and then again just before mile 13 to let her know that I was on my way and to get the camera ready.

 

I knew at that point that I would have a PR. It was an exciting moment for me. Something that I hadn't really been training for but something that I wanted to prove to myself. I really had no intention of attempting a PR for any of the races I have planned for 2014, and at this point I have no intention for any new PRs this year. For some reason this just felt right.

On to the next one. In two weeks!