2009 New Bedford Half Marathon

After 3 solid days characterized by a lack of running, I toed the line at the New Bedford Half Marathon feeling optimistic, but nervous.  I had varying goals (1:33, 1:30, 1:28:30, 1:27:00) but I think it was more important for me to be able to walk away feeling good about how I ran with my ultimate goal looming ahead in New Jersey.  I had been spending the past few days studying for another one of my Architectural Registration Exams, and wanted to stay off my feet to taper before the race.  Saturday night I even blew off a little of the anxiety that was building up over this race, and went to see the Dropkick Murphy’s play at the House of Blues.  I’m not sure how all the jumping up and down affected my run, but I doubt it was anything other than mental.

Even though the race started at 11 AM, I woke up at 7 to go through my pre-race ritual and needed to meet Jura and Columbia, who were driving, at the Massachusetts Avenue T stop.  We also picked up Greg Polumbo and his girlfriend Genoa before trekking down to the race site, about an hour away, close to Rhode Island.  There were a ton of Community Running athletes there.  Besides Jura (who ran bandit), Columbia, Greg and myself, I saw Robin, Sue, Erin, Ashley, Amanda, Marie-Claude, Mike, Cyrus, Vincent, Sarah, Alex Kamin, Jim, Trevor, Sophya, Aleks, Bill, and Dani, and Paige and Laura who came to cheer, then later at the line and at lunch, Chris, Enver, Alex Pierson, Goutham (who forgot his shoes and convinced a sports store in the area to open a bit early for him) and Brian.  There were probably a few more runners in there too, but I may have missed them.

The weather was pretty ideal – upper 40s to low fifties with varying amounts of cloud cover and as little wind as one could hope for – so Greg, Mike and I got in a light jog to warm up.   I had on shorts and a long sleeve cotton shirt that I would tear off when I started to heat up during the race, but I felt comfortable enough and started to stretch out a bit.

I think I really started freaking out shortly before the race began and the runners pushed up to the line.  Even though I had prepared for New Bedford, I worried that I would psych myself out.  I took one final look around and manuevered my way as close to the actual start as I thought was appropriate, settling in about three people deep behind the line.  The New Bedford Half was interesting in that even though it was chip timed, the chip only read your time across the finishing line, and started everybody against the gun – it was important in this race to be up front.

I was caught a bit off guard when the starting gun went off, but I  hit my watch when I crossed the line and tried to remain calm.  I distictly remember getting over excited during the first mile, and my breathing quickened, especially with Alex Pierson and his friend Kristy on my shoulder talking pace at about 6:15.  I knew that pace was way too fast, and I immediatly tried to focus on slowing my breathing down, hoping that would reign my pace in.  I hit the first mile with Greg Polumbo, who had pulled along side of me, at about 6:41, and having wanted to hit something closer to 6:50, I told Greg to take off, since I needed to ease up (Greg’s a faster runner).  I was also slightly offended (not really) that he started laughing at me when I (literally) tore off my long sleeve cotton shirt, having warmed up in the first mile.  I knew that there would be hills looming at mile 3 and 12, so I wanted to remain patient and see if I could haul my way to the end.

Goutham and Trevor passed me about a mile and a half in, and I debated staying with them, considering their running style and pace.  After keeping them at about 2 seconds ahead of me until mile 3, when we crested the first hill (which, PS, I did notice) I realized that it was more important for me to be able to run my race, and let G&T take off and build on the space that separated us.  I was really concerned with burning myself out too early, and opted to play conservatively until about mile 9 or so.  At mile 4, the race crests and the course starts to roll down towards a peninsula and the water.  Though my pace varied slightly up to that point, the downward slope opened up my stride and I accelerated into a much more even pace.  I took a quarter of a QU at mile 5 and it charged me up a bit; I was cognizant, too, about taking enough water to stay hydrated through the run.

At mile 7 the course flattened out, but I was content we weren’t going uphill, I held pace comfortable around 6:40 and took it down the peninsula as far as I could.  By now the cloud cover was nowhere in sight and we were running heat onto a pretty bright sun, which was nice.  It was after 8 miles though, that the wind picked up noticeably, and I made, what I think, was my most crucial strategic error of my race.  With the head wind pretty obvious, I looked around and realized that the next closest runner in front of me was a couple seconds ahead, and I would need to run strong, open up my stride and try to find shelter behind him or eas up and have somebody pass me to take the wind.

I kept turning my head to check who was behind me, and finding at least 4 other runners on my shoulder, I thought one would surely take the pace and cover me, for at least part of it.  After doing some street crossing, and playing with my stride, however, I realized nobody wanted the lead.  Keeping in ming that I let Goutham and Trevor go because I wanted to run my own race, and the fact that I’m trying to run more assertively, I instead opted to extend my gait an inch or two and make a play down the course for somebody to stay behind.  While the surge in effort paid off in that I didn’t have somebody on my heels who wouldn’t cooperate, the ninth mile markedly suffered pace wise, since I wasn’t able to hitch onto somebody until we had nearly turned to head east and north.

I lost visual contact with Trevor and Goutham shortly after the ninth mile marker – the course makes to 90 degree turns before heading back north and into town for the last two miles.  I tried to stay focused, and, as suggested, thought about positive things when I felt fatigue in my legs (namely, I kept saying I got into grad school!) and was able to keep my pace where I wanted to be.  Brian’s comments about having never tested myself also seemed to be ringing in my head.  At mile ten I took another mouthful of GU, threw out the rest, and having realized I had taken too much reached into my mouth and pulled some out (it was too thick to spit so it seemed the logical thing to do) before going for the water to let it dissolve slowly into my system.  The GU really helped the whole race, especially considering the fact that they didn’t have Gatorade.

I felt good, but still didn’t want to push it, fearing that I would blow it before the last hill, which was supposed to be a doozy.  My pace hadn’t dropped off, and doing the math in my head, I crunched the numbers and I thought I was on pace to break 1:30.  On the way north, I passed the 12th mile marker and was still convinced that I was on pace.  I took my iPod out of my back pocket, plugged in, and started listening to my last mile music to get me up the hill and to the end (Come So Far, from the soundtrack to Hairspray, Moby’s In My Heart - or check out this one – , and the theme song to Survivor), and I’m pretty sure I was singing out loud at that point.  I crested the hill, which wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be, and, familiar with the landscape at that point, tried to get to penultimate turn which would lead my down hill and over to the finish line.  With about half a mile to go, I saw Paige and Laura screaming and cheering their hearts out, and since I was the only CR person around, I took it as being all for me.  It put a smile on my face for the first time since Greg was laughing at me at mile 1, and took me to the end.

Somewhere very close to the end, I think I realized I had been doing the math for 13 miles, and forgot about the last one-tenth!  I crossed the line, by my watch at 1:30:28, and the official time had me at 1:30:30.  Depending on how you look at it, my pace was either 6:54 or 6:55.  Here are the official results and here are my splits:

1. 6:41.7
2. 6:53.7 (13:35.4)
3. 7:00.2 (20:35.7)
4. 7:03.7 (27:39.4)
5. 6:56.7 (34:36.2)
6. 6:47.8 (41:24.0)
7. 6:39.4 (48:03.4)
8. 6:39.7 (54:43.1)
9. 7:17.1 (1:02:00.1)
10. 6:45.1 (1:08:45.3)
11. 6:53.7 (1:15:39.1)
12. 6:53.3 (1:22:32.4)
13. + .1     7:56.0 (7:12 pace; 1:30:28.4 total)

Looking back, though there weren’t many things I could have done differently, I know I should have found shelter for the ninth mile, instead of going head on into the wind, especially considering that it was my slowest mile (the 13th might have been slower).  On the flip side of that, I think staying assertive through the elements helped me sort things out mentally for myself, which was another goal, and positive that I gained from the run.  The same could have been said about deciding to let Goutham and Trevor go.  While I may have been able to stay with them (they finished at about 1:28:50 or 6:47 pace) and had benefited from the shelter, I may have gotten tense running with them the entire time, and frustrated, since they have a tendency to take my shoulder during runs.  Again, running about 12 miles of the race alone allowed me to sort through some of my own mental blocks, and gain the positives associated with the experience, which will be valuable when it comes time to run New Jersey.  Incidentally, I plugged in my time into the McMillan Running Calculator, which some people swear by, and it predicted my marathon time to be 3:10:46, which is a bit closer to the BQ cutoff than I’d like, though on the right side of it.

I played it safe by running conservatively for most of the run, and being assertive when I thought it appropriate.  It’s easy in retrospect to think that I should have run with G&T (since it was also a goal to beat them!) or that I could have been a little less conservative in the later middle miles, since the hill at mile 12 wasn’t so bad.  Oh, and maybe lifting people to go crowd surfing or being mildly roughed up by a mosh pit isn’t the ideal activity for the night before a run, but at the end of the day, I am pleased with my performance, which was a PR by over eight and half minutes.  And, it gives me hope when thinking about running New Jersey and possibly qualifying for Boston.  Even though I didn’t “earn” any of my performance self prizes, in the traditional sense of the word, I’ve decided that I would get every one of them anyway (over the course of 4 months or so, probably).

Overall, friends from Community Running mostly performed well.  A big group (35) of us (joined by some Liver Foundation runners) went to an Italian restaurant nearby afterwards and though I couldn’t eat much, the company and mood seemed good.  People seemed generally happy with how they did and there were a number of PRs.  Pictures to come.