Topeka to Auburn Half Marathon 2011

Basically I jumped out of the car with about 10 minutes before the gun and walked a little way out the start of the course. It didn’t look very good. There was quite a bit of slush and snow on the road, but there were car tracks that went down to the pavement, so I figured if I could just get out of the gate and get myself in one of those “channels” I should at least be OK for a while. Other than this brief walk I didn’t warm up at all and really had very low expectations for the race. I figured I would do it as a punctuated tempo run, running the parts on clear pavement relatively hard and taking it easy whenever encountering snow pack or slush or, heaven forbid, ice.

There was some slush and snow the first three or four miles, but virtually all of that always had a “car track” to follow where the pavement was exposed and only wet in the worst case. I felt good. Really good. I struggled with my Garmin and basically missed timing and GPS-recording the first mile of the race, but I got it going at the one-mile mark and noted that my mile 2,3, & 4 splits were right around 6 flat. By then the little knot of 4 front runners was starting to fall apart, and by the sixth mile mark I was gaining quickly on fourth and third place. We hit a mother of a hill in the seventh mile and I took advantage of it to take over third place and rapidly gained on second. Near the crest of the hill there was a race photographer and as we passed him I was within 15 yards of second.

Me (178), having taken over 3rd on Urish Hill

After we came over the top of the hill I recovered a little bit and figured I would hunt down the second place dude (a 20-year-old college kid), so I pushed a little. He was getting away from me. So I pushed a little more. I thought, holy crap, I can’t catch this guy, and indeed, I could not. I checked my watch at the 8-mile mark and saw that I had run a 5:36 trying to run this guy down, and he must have gained 100m on me in that time. Dang, he must have burned a 5:20 or faster.

A bit knackered from that chase, but fully aware that I had probably just run the fastest 8 miles of my entire life, we hit the gravel roads that apparently had not been plowed at all and they were snow packed almost completely for the next 4 miles. There were short stretches here and there where the dirt and gravel poked up through the snow and allowed for some better footing, but by and large it was very sub-optimal. But I thought I should still try to run hard. Heck, I didn’t know when I would get another crack at the last 5 miles of a half marathon sitting, I reckoned, under 48 minutes at the 8 mile mark. So, I abandoned my race plan to “take it easy” on the bad footing sections and just kept going about as hard as I could manage, even though the packed snow would give way ever so slightly with every step up and down those hills. And there were a couple of doozies and several little rollers all the way in to the finish.

Looking ahead at the big ole climb in the 11th mile I saw that the guy I had been chasing for second was now the front runner and the former leader was fading. The dude was strong, and I wondered if he planned his race intentionally for such an aggressive second half. It was a good plan – he buried the former leader and when we finally turned back onto snow-free asphalt for the last mile of the race I thought I might give chase for second. Unfortunately second place still had a big lead on me, and although he was fading I could only draw within maybe 150m before we ran out of race. Still, it is pretty cool to run third overall in a race with a bunch of 20-something guys making up the rest of the top six.

Lessons learned. As I write this the day after the race it is a little bittersweet. Third overall rocks. A new sub-1:19 PR rocks, too. But my left knee hurts pretty bad off and on today. I have noticed recently that it gets a little sore after interval work, so pushing hard on it has been a factor before, but not this bad. I think it hurts today because of the ever-so-slight twisting and turning involved in running on the snow. I ran an easy 5 ½ today and the pain would come and go, but when it would come it hurt enough to really get my attention. I hope this does not prove a setback for the greater goal. In the final analysis this knee pain is all really because I can hardly contain myself not to race. In that uphill 7th mile before we hit the packed snow, when I was a hunter and had a podium finish in mind, I had pretty much made up my mind at that point that I was racing. I think even if something had gone horribly wrong, from that point on I would have done anything I had to do to finish the race as competitively as possible. I have good intentions, but then when race day comes, any race day, it’s pretty hard for me not to race unless I’m pushing a baby stroller or running with one of the kids. Oh well, there are worse faults. In any case, I think this is going to be a week of easy miles. I hope the knee pain subsides quickly.

Inferring the first mile from my official finish time [1:18:56] and the other 12.1 miles according to Garmin, here are the splits:
5:52, 5:56, 6:03, 6:00, 5:52, 6:00, 6:05, 5:36, 6:15, 5:54, 6:23, 6:10, 6:12, 0:38.
(Garmin actually had the last 12.1 miles as 12.22, but I always took the lap times at the official markers).