Notes
Interesting day at the Frostbite Half Marathon in Cedars of Lebanon Park. Drove up with Vance Berry and got there with plenty of time to warm up. The plan going in to the race had been to run it as a progression run with Scott Wietecha, starting at 6:00 pace and finishing near 5:00 pace to go 1-2. Unfortunately, that plan went out the window when we saw a fast looking Kenyan guy named Geoffrey Kiptoo jogging around. Scott did a little internet sleuthing and found out that the guy had a 2:14 marathon PR from a couple of years back.
The race went off and Scott and I found ourselves in 1st and 2nd with Kiptoo right behind us. It stayed this way for a while, though by mile 4, I found myself a half step in back of the two of them. While the pace didn't feel crazy fast, I was definitely hurting on the uphills. I was really worried that Scott and Kiptoo were going to dust me, but I just tried to focus on staying relaxed and running the pace.
Around mile 8, Kiptoo slowed down just enough at a water station to give Scott and I a one second gap going into a hill. We hammered the hill (my GPS had us at 4:40 pace for a little bit) in order to create some separation, and surprisingly it worked. The next 3 miles were a hilly grind with Scott doing more of the pacemaking to ensure that we built up a somewhat-comfortable 25 second lead on Kiptoo.
The last 2 miles, I really started to pay for the surge at mile 8. Scott was kind enough to slow down with my and not dust me. We had been planning on crossing together and asking them to put us as tied in the results, but I told Scott that he should take the win since he clearly could have run away from me if the had wanted to. Unfortunately, right at the line, I accidentally pushed ahead a little and Scott slowed down just a little bit. As a result we had the exact same time down to the 10th, but the race director looked at an off-angle photo of the finish and dertermined that I had, in fact won. I felt really scummy for getting the "win" because Scott was clearly the better runner today and slowed down the last miles to help pace me in. I tried to protest the results with the race director to no avail. Another post race bummer is that when the awards ceremony finished, I went outside to go collect my running singlet, flats, and spikes, only to find that someone had stolen them! Who the heck steals someones running clothes?!?!? Good thing Newton is going to be hooking us up with some new gear because I have nothing to race in now!!
Anyway, felt really beat up after the race. Could only muster a one-mile jog. After the race my hip was also feeling really sore all over, not the specific sharp pain I had post-Houston.
Decent day out there. Ran exactly a minute faster than I did last year on this tough, rolling course, but my internal effort was definitely a lot greater, definitely a race effort and not a workout effort. That being said, it's not a bad place to be, but I definitely have a lot of work to put in.