Mill Creek Half Marathon Report

 

First event of 2010 down and I guess we can say that I am officially starting back!

The plan was for the gimp squad to run the hilly half marathon pace at a comfortable pace and just have social 2 hours while we attempted to put in some quality mileage! The Gimp Squad included me, coming back from the tibia stress fracture, Amie (pictured above)coming back from IT band issues, and Jim who is only 9 weeks out from knee surgery!

Unlike the last several Youngtown 1/2 marathons, weather was as nice as one could ask for. 33 degrees and sunny at the start! Jim and I took a position near the back of the crowd as I looked around for Amie who had disappeared into the mass of runners. Jim's plan was to run a nice easy pace of 9 min or better miles. I was fine with that as I was still nervous the tibia might just throw me the bird at any given minute! As a side note, it is so nice to start a race with no expectations other than to finish, feel good and enjoy yourself! I was looking forward to gettiing back out there running with all my friends!

Jim and I took off and the miles just clicked off pretty effortlessly. One of my biggest regrets of the race was not carrying my camera. The park just looked so gorgeous with the sun shining through the trees, glistening the water filled with ducks and of course a lot of us good looking runners on the hilly streets! Oh a wonderful morning for running for sure.

Strangely the planned 9 minute pace never really materialized as we were in the 8:45/ min mile pace the first third and then worked our way down on the back sections to 8:20 /min mile pace or so on the last few miles. The good part was we sort of noticed the slight pick up in pace but it was not intentional and we were actually probably consciously holding back trying to make sure we did not push our respective healing areas too much!

After finishing the last several climbs at the end of the race , before we knew it, we were rolling through the finish line! A success for the entire gimp squad, who all finished feeling well with the longest run in months for all of us! WE'RE BACK!

Here are the numbers for the day-
Distance Total: 13.36 Miles
Elevation Gain: 2107
Elevation Loss: 2089
Average HR: 153 (a nice comfy Z2, with some HR spikes on the uphills!)
Average Speed: 8:34 min/miles

Also of note, I was very proud of 3 of my fast female friends (EH, NC, and SI) for posting up some silly fast times and taking 1,3, and 4 spots! Way to go ladies!

The awesome morning was concluded with an awesome evening with our Southeast Running Club Banquet at Primo Vino! Good food with good friends!

Last week runddown:

3/1 AM 2200 Meters Swam (Lifetime masters), noon 1 hour Gorris Bike W/O
3/2 AM 5.5 Miles Ran
3/3 AM 3350 Yards Swam (CSU Masters), weights 30 min (UB)
3/4 AM 7 Mile Run with CV (8:45 pace)
3/5 Noon 45 min Bike Gorris w/o (cut short by 15 min), 6.25 Mile run with E (8:30 pace)
3/6 AM 2 hour Bike (ECC), 2000 yard swim
3/7 AM 13.3 Mile Run (Ytown half)

Totals-
Time 12.75 hours
Ran 32 Miles
Biked ~ 60 Miles
Swam 7550 yards (plus a little for meters day)
Core 30 min