Race Report: Blue and Gray Half Marathon, December 6, 2020.

I ran the Blue and Gray Half-Marathon this morning, finishing in 1:31:08, which was good enough for second master.

My original plan had been to race the Jacksonville Half-Marathon in Florida the weekend before Christmas.  However, as things worsened in the US Covid 19-wise, traveling outside of my immediate area looked like a bad choice.  Plus, it's never certain that any race will happen.

So when I saw a Facebook ad for the Blue and Gray Half-Marathon in Fredericksburg, it made sense to target that instead.  The Blue and Gray would be a few weeks earlier, and used a slower, hillier course - both points meaning that I likely would not run as fast there as I would in Jacksonville.

But I'm not in PR shape right now any way.  So why hold out for the PR course?

***

I debated getting a hotel in Fredericksburg the night before, so that I wouldn't have to drive down in the morning.  (It's only an hour drive, but driving down I-95 at any time of day, even early Sunday morning, is always rolling the dice as to whether you will hit a traffic jam).  In the end, I decided to stick with the convenience of sleeping in my own bed and just waking up earlier.

Fortunately, there was indeed little traffic and I made it to Fredericksburg in a little under an hour.  Enough time to use the rest rooms, grab my bib, put on my racing shoes, use the rest rooms, warm-up, use the rest rooms, and then enter my "corral."  

The corral was a bit different from the norm - each corral was 25 people, sent off in individual waves 60 seconds apart.  Within the corral, there were painted marks for each person to stand on, to keep us separated.    As each corral started, the occupants of the next corral would walk up to fill the now empty corral, where we stood in our spots until we were started.  Everyone wore masks until the start (I'll confess I took mine off two seconds early), and then tucked them away to be used again after finishing.

***

We started, and I was in for a rude awakening as within the first half mile we had a short but steep climb to get out of the parking area where the race started, followed by jumping up from the road to a sidewalk path.  And that was a harbinger for the rest of the race.  Most of the course was gently rolling (with the occasional short and steep climb or drop), on a combination of roads, sidewalks, bike paths, and occasionally gravel.  

After said rude awakening, the course first looped one and a half times around Fredericksburg, with a bunch of curb hurdling (one of my favorite things) as we swapped back and forth between road, sidewalk, and bike path.    

At one point I was rather happily (relatively speaking) bopping along a bike path when all of the sudden someone flagged me to turn right.  Onto gravel. 

 I may have cursed out loud. 

In retrospect, I definitely cursed out loud.  Oops.  #nosportmanshipawardforme  

We did a short loop through a neighborhood, and then back onto the bike path.

The course had quite a few twists and sharp turns, which I should have picked up on from reviewing the course map. Why didn't I?  Because the USATF map was so hard to follow that I just gave up and decided I'd figure it out when I got there.  

(I do need to give a shout out here - the course was very well marshalled and flagged.  As confusing as it was, I was never in any danger of going off course.  Any place where there could be any confusion had someone yelling directions over and over again).

The most notable feature of the course was THE BIG HILL (aka Fall Hill), which we hit about 5 miles into the course, after looping around the city.  I had actually mapped this one out earlier in the week, and wasn't worried about it - I thought it would be similar in incline and distance to the Custis trail coming out of Rosslyn.    Nope.  It ended up being significantly steeper (at least it felt that way).

My plan for this hill had been to not worry about pace while running up it, but instead to focus on short quick steps and getting up the hill with as little damage as possible.  Ideally, I wouldn't go anaerobic on it.

I mostly accomplished this, but did get anaerobic by the time I was at the top.  Oh well, so was everyone else.   Then we did an out and back (that looked flat on the course map but was gently rolling) followed by back down the big hill, which I used as a chance to take my gel (Maurten caffeinated).

Then back around the city one more time.  More curbs, more sidewalks, more sharp turns.  There was a woman ahead whom I was slowly reeling in.  But every time there was a sharp turn or a curb to hop up on, I'd lose my rhythm and then have to re-establish, and lose some of the ground I had made up on her.

Especially as I get later in a race, I tend to lock into a rhythm.  Once I'm in that rhythm, I can hold pace very well and build even as I tire.   But when I lose that rhythm, as I did here, it gets harder and harder to re-establish the later I am in the course.  Yet another reason that I don't race cross-country or trails.  

By the last mile, my legs were absolutely fried and I was just hanging on.  I tried to push a bit harder as we approached the finish line, but I just had nothing.  I crossed the line about 8 seconds behind the other woman.  I fought, but she fought better.

***

My splits (I took manual splits at mile markers) were:

Mile 1: 7:04

Mile 2: 7:02

Mile 3: 6:53

Mile 4: 6:49

Mile 5: 6:47

Mile 6: 7:42 (BIG HILL)

Mile 7: 7:04

Mile 8: 7:01

Mile 9: 6:54

Mile 10: 6:29 (down BIG HILL)

Mile 11: 6:54

Mile 12: 6:54

Mile 13: 6:52

last bit: 43 seconds.

So pretty even, after easing into it.

It's worth noting that my footpod measured the distance of the race as a whopping 13.54 miles.  I don't think this is because the race was long (it was a certified course and well managed).  Nor do I think it's because my footpod is off.  Heck I tested it on the track this week in this exact pair of shoes and it was consistently reading 397 meters for every 400 meters.

Rather, I think it's because I did an absolutely awful job running the tangents of this very curvy course.  Some of this was intentional - there were a lot of places where running the shortest parts of the course meant hopping up on uneven sidewalks, and I instead went wide so I could stay on pavement.  

But some of it was also being out of practice with racing.  A fair amount of this course was on a winding bike path with a yellow line marking the center.  Instead of running the tangents, I dutifully stayed to the right of the yellow line until I came to my senses near the end of the race.

***

As it turned out, the woman that I tried to reel in but couldn't had just turned 40, so she was top masters.  I ended up winning my age group and getting a cute beanie for my efforts.  Such is racing.

I'm happy I did this race, even if I didn't perform as fast as I had hoped.    I've found that I always get a solid bump up in fitness after racing a half-marathon and hopefully this one will follow that pattern.  IMHO, it's also good to race regularly whenever you are healthy, even if you are not in peak shape.  For me, racing is a skill that needs practice, and I got some good practice today.

Other notes:

• The weather was absolutely perfect - 37 degrees with little wind.  I went with shorts, tank top, arm-warmers and gloves and felt perfectly dressed.  The air was supposedly very dry, but I didn't notice.
• I left my house at 5:15 am (yes) and got down there around 6:10.  Which worked out perfectly - no wasted time before the race, but I didn't feel rushed.
• I wore my Flyknit Vaporflies 4% for this - I went with them over the Next% because I thought I'd like the higher heel on the long downhill section.  I did, but I'm still wondering if the Next%s wouldn't have been a better choice.  This pair of shoes has always felt a bit slick and slippery to me on the roads, and I definitely felt like I was slipping slightly with each push-off today.  (of course I could just be whining).  Perhaps it's time to junk this pair.
• During and immediately after the race I briefly got to see my Fredericksburg friends Tracy and Carol.  It was a nice bit of almost-normalcy.