CLAUDE BACON #470
OWENSBORO, KY, USA
Age: 37
Chip Time- 1:56:34
Overall Place- 1404 / 9397
Gender Place- 1067 / 4148
Division Place -193 / 605
Pace: 8:54
Now the details. It was unseasonably hot and windy, good at the start of the race, but quickly moved into the too hot range. Irquoi Park was a beast; it provided some shade but 5, or felt like 5, killer switchback and long hills added to the fun. Carried a strong pace through the entire park and passed a bunch on the hills. Plenty of goofball runners too...Elvisises, horse costumes, chicks in derby hats and more. Race was very well organized in my opinion, I'll run it again. Felt great this morning, hit the bathroom a few times before the start and was ready to run. My first mistake of the day was hanging in choral C, that means there was an A and B ahead of me and that was about 8000+ people, most of which were not aiming at what my goal was so that became a real source of frustration for the first 2 miles, I spent the vast majority of my energy and time making my way to the front....it cost me some time and additonal energy, plus mental focus...so lesson learned. But I could have easily cut multiple minutes off my time if I positioned myself to the front. The first 8 miles we good and on my training pace of 8:30...miles 9-12 fell off slightly to about a 9 minute pace, mainly due to some leg fatigue and heat. Picked it back up at mile 12 and smoothed out another 8:30 mile; then a sprint to the end. Also learned that I need to carry my own Gatorade. I just coudn't rely for their random locations....they were everyplace I did not need it. Plenty of water stations though. I picked up a girl about mile 12 and asked her if she wanted to hunt down about 50 people...we did and both increased our finish times by about 50+. Felt good to help someone else too. She was struggling and I needed some motivation, so we helped each other. Top 15% overall, top 25% of men so I feel good about my results. Can I run it faster? Yep and will choose another soon so I can know for sure. Congrats to Dino for the finish...trust me, you don't know how much I respect your finish cause I know how tough the conditions were today.
1 comment:
Outstanding work, Claude. An "under 2 hour" half is a wonderful accomplishment. Sounds like you learned some great lessons that you can carry over into your next race.
Take it easy for a few days and only run easy when you do get back. Then get back at it with your next goal in place. Sprint triathlon next? Look forward to learning all about your training for that over the next few weeks.
Welcome to the half marathoners club!
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