I was looking forward to this race. What began as an alcohol-encouraged declaration, “I want to run a half marathon” by a friend’s brother, finally culminated in the actual running of a half marathon.
Although my running partner for the race (a guy, quite appropriately named for this particular event, Myles) had had some foot issues, he had the go ahead to run from a podiatrist. As we stood in the cold pre-dawn dark, waiting for the race to begin, he admitted to being nervous since he had to lay off running for the last week and a half. Oh yeah, he was also nervous because he’d never done anything like this before today!
The race had a fun Start area this year – cheesy, yet oddly motivational pop music, mostly from the 80s was blaring, a chipper and enthusiastic announcer and plenty of room in the corrals.
Myles and I agreed that we would warm-up on the course and settled in to light stretching and general bouncing around as we waited for the race to begin. You see a lot of nervous energy being masked as warm-up/stretching at the beginning of races and back in slower corrals where there seems to be a larger percentage of first-timers, the nervous energy is almost palpable. The anxiety, fear, excitement, it’s infectious. The tension is not based on the live-or-die to hit a certain pace, get a PR or qualify for Boston. The tension, back where we started, based on facing the unknown – will I be able to do this? – seems much more urgent when it refers to making it across a finish line 13.1 or 26.2 miles away instead of can I break a certain pace or time.
Since Myles was running about 10 minute/miles before his injury, our plan was to take it slow (about 10:30 pace) for the first 2 or 3 miles, open it up to 10:00 pace after that and then see how we felt as the race progressed and adjust our pace accordingly. Best laid plans, right?
The gun finally went off but it took us about 5 minutes to get across the start line…and then (finally) we were off! One of the things I like about this race is that the course and water stops aren’t as crowded as other races in the area. It was nice to not have to jostle for position for the first few miles like you do at bigger races in the area (MCM, Army 10 Miler, etc.).
We hit Miles 1 and 2 at around a 10 minute pace but when I looked at my watch for the Mile 3 split, we were speeding up so I purposely slowed us down on the next mile. Oops, Mile 4 ended up being our slowest at around 11 minutes.
The race was going well as we started Mile 5 through the Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan neighborhoods…and some steady-climbing hills, where I got to unleash my hill running demons. This race, since I was pacing someone else and had to be conscious of their effort level as well as my own, made me realize how impatient I am when running hills. I speed up them in order to get them over with sooner and the feeling once you’ve leveled off and conquered the hill just can’t be beat. It is a sense of relief mixed with pride of accomplishment and it always gets me going.
Mile 5 was also are second-fastest mile of the race (I told you, I’m impatient).
Once we finished with the hills, we settled in to a fairly comfortable 9:30 to 9:15 pace through Mile 12. This part of the half marathon went by quickly and without much of note. I had laid off the chatter since Myles wasn’t much of a talker after Mile 4, only announcing the mile markers as we passed them and pointing out water/Gatorade stops. However, when we passed the Mile 10 marker, I turned to Myles and said, “well, you’ve officially run further than you’ve ever run before. How do you feel?” Myles half grunted, “squishy” and we kept running.
I was feeling good when we hit the 12 mile point and turned to Myles, proclaiming, “This is it. One more mile to go,” and with a glint in my eye and devilish grin, “let’s make it our fastest.” I just took off, hoping he would, and could, keep up.
For the rest of that last 1.1 mile, instead of running side by side like we had for the entire race, he was one step behind me and each time he caught up, I pushed it just a little bit more.
We were passing people left and right, just picking ‘em off. It felt great!
As we hit the last mile marker, I pointed out the finish line just around the corner and up a hill and said, “We just have to make it up this last hill to get there. Let’s do it.” Myles sounded a little surprised that the finish line was so close and we charged up the hill. (Race directors in DC, bless them, can be a little sadistic when it comes to ending their races on an uphill climb).
We crossed the finish line, with the announcer saying Myles’ name over the loudspeaker. “And here comes Myles Kitchen. With a name like that, you have to announce it!” We crossed the line in 2 hours 8 minutes, with a second between the two of us.
It felt good to be able to end this long-anticipated race on such a high note. We finished strong. We were able to bask in the after race glow for a while as we found family and friends who had come to cheer us on and get food from the runner’s tent before jumping on the metro, headed for a diner and a well-deserved stack of pancakes.
Race Pros: Proximity to home. Metro opens early. Decent amount of spectators (half only, I hear the second half of the full gets very lonely). Tech tee race shirt.
Race Cons: They ran out of cups at some of the middle mile water stations!! Expo is boring.
Mile Splits (according to my watch):
Miles 1 & 2 20:01 (missed 1st mile marker)
Mile 3 9:40
Mile 4 10:57
Mile 5 8:46 (where did that come from?)
Mile 6 & 7 19:49 (missed 6th mile marker)
Mile 8 9:30
Mile 9 12:36 (potty break)
Mile 10 9:20
Mile 11 9:14
Mile 12 9:15
Mile 13 7:57 (that last mile felt good...Speedy Gonzales good)
Final .1 1:11
Total 2:08:16
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