Health knowledge made personal
|
Race Tip: I've started pinning my race number to my spibelt and I find that I'm less likely to tear it or get all caught up in the bib which is awesome since I'm such a klutz when it comes to running sometimes!  The race started off with a flyover by planes in a formation and the race starts at the bottom of a hill. I was amazed at the amount of people who ran down the hill before the race even started!  The temperatures at the start reminded me of the Chicago Marathon last fall, starting in the upper 60's with a slight breeze. I think I would have been okay if I had been training in heat all summer but it's been pretty chilly around here as of late so that threw me off.  I was doing well for the first 5k and really had my pace under control and then I started getting flustered for some reason. Luckily I was able to punt the sunglasses to the hubs around mile 4 and also around this point I realized I wasn't really having a great time. I missed my running partner and having to keep at a regular pace for him!  This was me being oh-so-graceful at trying to hand off the sunglasses without taking out anyone behind me! The course isn't too bad for being billed as a course with rolling hills, that is until you get to miles seven through nine. Mile seven takes you down to one of the lower points of the course and there's not a lot of tree cover and then you wind around Courageous Drive to get to the top of the biggest hill on the course. Unfortunately this is when the temperatures started raising and they changed the flags from green to yellow. I wish I had trained better for hills, but that's something I can work on for the next hilly race I run. When we pushed through to around mile 10 the hubs was there with his camera and he cheered me on saying that the course was both literally uphill and downhill from there - just the thing I didn't want to know! I was hoping the hills were done, but to my dismay they were still there - the biggest was just behind me!  The race finishes just past the bridge over the reservoir at the Geist Marina and that bridge was a beast. I remember thinking that I just wanted the race to be over so I could get a cold drink! I noticed in the pictures the hubs took of me on the bridge that my stride had really shortened which doesn't make me happy but it just further reinforces that I need to work on hills for the next half I run!  For my first hot race of the year and my first hilly half-marathon I was pleased with my final time of 2:48:22. My A goal was to get a PR which I was about 10 minutes off of (boo). My B goal was to finish in under 2:50 (yay) and my C goal was to finish in under 3 hours. I knew the course was more difficult as people at work had recommended it as a bit of a challenge but I was glad to make two out of three goals for the race!  The post-race party was pretty sweet and the Month of May club was worth it to get a sweet tech tee, all the food and beer I could enjoy and fancy portable restrooms! I just wish I could have gotten my husband in the month of may area but instead we hit up Scotty's Lakehouse for a delicious burgers and sweet potato fries.  I would recommend the Geist Half-Marathon to anyone who wants a smaller race with a bit of a challenge that is run smoother than any large race that I've ever run! The medals is also really awesome with the water being glass and the ribbon is really pretty! I'm glad to have qualified for Half-Marathon Maniacs and that I'm a member of the Month of May Club. I still can't believe that as of January 2009 I hadn't run before and now when I see how much I've accomplished I'm so proud of myself! What big accomplishments have you achieved by putting your mind to the test? 
|
Write a comment:
|
Last Saturday morning I was up at 4:45 for my second half-marathon in 14 days and I was excited to finally run a race in 2011 that wasn't raining or cold or a combination of both. The Geist Half-Marathon is a fairly new race to Indianapolis and it lays claim to the only slightly hilly spring half-marathon in the area.
Since it was my second half-marathon in May I qualified for the "Month of May Marathon Club" in which you run two halves in May and get a lot of sweet benefits. One of which was having an awesome low number bib with a sweet Month of May design and another was special parking in a less crowded lot!