Arroyo Creek Half Marathon- Race Recap

This race was on a semi-familiar course, since we had often trained on the Simi Valley wash, however I had never run a half marathon by myself. In fact, the farthest distance I had run to date alone was 6.2 miles.

I am not a fast runner, and I probably never will be. I don't usually race for time but since this was my first half marathon alone I wanted to see what I could do.

The race started on time and the first three miles were pretty sluggish. They usually are for me for some reason. My feet were heavy and my breathing was off. Once I hit the three mile mark something changed and things got a lot easier.

The course was pretty uneventful. Being in the middle of June the wash was dry so there was very little wildlife. What made the race, what makes every race, were the volunteers. They are awesome and full of energy and it makes it just a little easier for us when we go through the water stations. A special thank you to them as well as to the police officers directing traffic (including the one that yelled at the driver who didn't stop and almost hit me).

I felt really good between miles 8-10. So good that I upped a few intervals from 1:1 (running 1 minute, walking 1 minute and repeating) to 2:1. I was feeling great and ready to do miles 10-13 using 2:1 intervals but that didn't happen. I got really hot and really sluggish again, but I pushed through.

There was a girl running near me who was also using 1:1 intervals. She was on her walking interval while I was on my running so we kept leap-frogging back and forth. I ended up running an extra minute so we could be on the same intervals and I really think it helped both of us to push through to the end. She had more left than I did though and finished before me, but she found me afterwards and thanked me for pushing her to go just a little faster.

Before the race my PR was from our first half marathon. It was the Santa to the Sea course and we had a wonderful pace group leader with us. She was faster than I think we were ready for, but we made it to the end with her finishing in 2:49. It was very exciting since our goal was to finish under 3 hours.

My goal for any half marathon is to finish under 3 hours. I've learned that in order to reach my goal I need to make it obtainable. 3 hours, to me, is obtainable. I secretly wanted to PR though.. My other goal was to run each mile in under 13:30.

Mile 1- 12:44
Mile 2- 13:12
Mile 3- 12:27
Mile 4- 12:22
Mile 5- 11:55
Mile 6- 11:48
Mile 7- 11:53
Mile 8- 12:06
Mile 9- 11:58
Mile 10- 12:05
Mile 11- 12:09
Mile 12- 12:07
Mile 13- 12:10
.02- 0:06

Finish time:

I ended up finishing 10 minutes faster than my current PR! I still can't believe it. What an amazing feeling! Maybe I need to start setting some more challenging goals..

It wasn't until close to the end that I received a text message from Rachel saying that she finished but that she fell about .25 miles before the finish. She had some road burn and her ankle was hurting her. Some other runners around her helped her and she ended up running through the finish line. She's amazingly tough and I'm so proud of her for finishing! Her ankle didn't look and/or feel good for quite some time and I still don't think it looks the same. Thankfully she wasn't out of running for too long and we're back at it!