This morning I competed in the Earth Day Half Marathon in St Cloud. The weather was almost perfect running weather with the temp in the mid 40's.
This was my second race after completing the Twin Cities Marathon last October. I was dealing with a cold but it didn't bother me much. I finished the race in 1:48:41 - good for 533 place overall among 1,773 finishers of all ages. I had hoped to run in the 1:55-1:58 range so I was pleased and a little surprised by my time.
The thing that pleased me the most was that I was able to push my pace throughout the race. I ran the first 3 miles in a mid 8:30/mile pace, the mid-race miles in the 8:15 range, and my final 4 miles in 7:45 with my best mile - mile 13 in 7:31. If I maintained my half marathon pace for a full marathon, my time would be just 2 minutes short of my age group Boston Marathon qualifying time of 3:35:59. Trouble is, I could not maintain that pace today. But I have 4 years to try. Plus, when I move to the 55-60 age group, I buy an additional 5 minutes of qualifying time to play with.
Anyway, next stop on the race trail is Fargo on May 17th and the Fargo Marathon. My goal is to break 4 hours. I ran 4:37 at the Twin Cities last October so I think this is very achievable if the weather cooperates. Although tired, I felt strong throughout the race today. The 600 training miles I logged over the winter are definitely paying off. Next Saturday is my final long training run of 18 miles, followed by 3 weeks of tapering and hopefully fresh legs for the marathon.
http://www.onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=7503&relist_record_type=result&lower_bound=0&upper_bound=1774&use_previous_sql=1&group_by=default#racetop
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