Half Marathon Addendum

I’m feeling pretty good in the aftermath of yesterday’s half marathon. Every time I stand up from my desk after sitting for a while, my hips creak and my first couple steps are stiff, but after that I’m fine.

Did anyone else have problems with the runner update system yesterday? I’ve talked to at least three other people that never got any updates on the runners they were tracking. Jose never got a single update on me during the race, and finally got an update that I’d finished — at 2:30 yesterday afternoon. I’d signed up my own cell phone as well, and got my finisher’s update — at 7:00 last night. Obviously the updates were beyond useless at that point. The system has always worked in the past (though I remember it being pretty sluggish last year), but to not work at all? Not cool.

I didn’t have my Garmin handy when I wrote the last entry, so here are my splits. Which obviously means that I wore my watch, despite pondering (quite seriously) the idea of ditching it entirely. It was a race morning decision to wear it after all. I’m too much of a wuss to do a major race and get no data on it, apparently.

Mile 1 – 10:10 (note to self: don’t start in the front)
Mile 2 – 10:48
Mile 3 – 10:42
Mile 4 – 10:58
Mile 5 – 10:37
Mile 6 – 10:58 (took a gu at the water station)
Mile 7 – 11:03 (stupid mini-hills)
Mile 8 – 10:34
Mile 9 – 11:15 (took another gu at the water station)
Mile 10 – 11:37 (saw Cassie & Manny, but getting really tired)
Mile 11 – 11:06 (maybe I can push through?)
Mile 12 – 12:09 (ok, no, I am really freaking tired)
Mile 13 – 11:47
Last 0.1 – 1:02 (can see the clock, gotta finish under 2:25!)

A lot of people mentioned they had Garmin issues during the race, measuring the wrong time and/or wrong distance. I can’t explain it, since my Garmin functioned perfectly. It did lose signal as I expected it would once I got downtown and the line of sight to the satellites gets reflected off multiple buildings, so it read long and my average pace took a false dive in the last mile. But until then the distance was almost dead on. And even once it lost satellites, the timer still functioned just fine.

I also forgot to mention that I saw Matt, an old friend from my co-op days, in the lobby of the hotel on Saturday night. He doesn’t work at JSC anymore, but he’s still in the area and runs for the On The Run team. I think he’s in med school, or was at some point? Anyway, it was cool to run into him. This year he’d qualified as an elite and was telling me about the private port-o-potties for the elites at the start line. What a perk! 🙂

Anyway, he told me his goal was sub-2:30, but he didn’t quite make it. In fact, he crossed the finish line at exactly the same time that I did! I saw him to my left as I passed under the finish banner, but didn’t get a chance to say anything as he was ushered away by the elite volunteers. I did 2:24:49, which means he (with his elite wave start) ran a 2:34:xx marathon. Not his goal, but not too shabby, eh?

I signed up for next year’s half marathon today. What the hell, right? I can’t imagine why I wouldn’t be in town and/or want to run the race, but worst case I can transfer the bib.