It was here again another chance to run at USA Half Marathon Championships.I ran at the last USA Half in Duluth Minnesota and did not run a good race. My GPS broke right before the start and it was super hard to know pace without a watch it was like running in the dark. I wanted to redeem myself this year and run really well.
Before the St. George Marathon I was training with my old high school coach who coached at Air Force Academy and William and Mary and now he coaches about 10 athletes that run half and full Marathons. As I was training under him I was slowly losing motivation to run. He wanted me to run all of my workouts alone. Some people can do that but I cannot, after running on high school and college teams I prefer and was use to runnign with others. It makes time go by faster and work outs seem to go much smoother. As I decided to drop my coach I started training with the amazing Ogden crew which includes but is not limited to.....Ken, Bret, Steve, Dave, Jon, Albert, Bryant, Riley.
They have helped to push me in workouts and I have become much stronger training with them. My old coach wanted me to even go 6 min pace on my easy days, on my easy days now I run hills and trails nice and slow and try to enjoy myself and it has helped me to stay motivated and get to love running once again.
At USA Half Championships my roommate was Riley and that was great as we were able to pump each other up getting ready for the race. The only bad part was that Riley got sick earlier this week so that was not good.
We warmed up for 2 miles with John Coyle and Jake Krong. I was feeling good and was really excited to race. This was my first race racing under Skechers and wanted to make them proud. My training has never been this good leading up to a half marathon before so that gave me a lot of confidence I could run well.
Gun went off and I took off. First mile the goal was to be around 4:50 to 4:55 and it was I as about 4:52 or so. In my head I was thinking this is not that bad if I can stay as close as possible to this pace then I will have a great race. At the 5k I was 15:30 so 5:00 min pace I was feeling good and trying to stay loose. I was running ina good pack of about 8 or 9 of us so that was incredibly helpfull to keep pace and hold on. As the race went on I felt that I was keeping the pace but I aws slowly dropping off. 5k to 10k I was averaging 5:07 pace so 10k was 31:21. Still feeling good and trying to stay focused on the task at hand of my goal of breaking 1:07. The long straight aways felt really long at times especially since no body was dropping and there was now a huge gap between our pack and the one in front of us. The race got much harder right around 8 I looked down at my watch and kept seeing 5:15 or so pac and I coul dnot believe I was dying so much. It was rough but I just tried to hold on as much as I could. At this point this is where I should have pushed more and threw in a surge, it would have helped me to stay more in a rythem and not have gotten comfortable like I was. 10k to 15k dropped to 5:10 pace averag, 15k split was 47:21. 15k to 20k continued to fade dropped to 5:14 pace, 20k split was 1:03:36. Last 3 min or so was 5:02 pace but to late to save the day. Ended up running a 1:07:01.
Best race of my life in the Half Marathon by a min and a half. Old PR 1:08:30 to New PR 1:07:01.
I was very happy with my race. Mentally I faded a little bit but I suprised myself and stayed strong longer than I thought I could. I now know that I can push my boundaries and look forward to a great 2014. I plan to hopefully break 1:06 this year in the Half Marathon and break 2:24 in the Marathon.
Cool Down for 2 miles with John and Jake.
| 
