parks half marathon

I went in thinking I had a shot at 7 min/mi pace. It's a bit of a stretch since my 10-mile PR from the spring is 6:59 per mile and this is a harder course, but I'm counting on improving if I'm going to run 3:15 at MCM and qualify. A 1:10:49 10-miler projects to 7:05 per mile half according to McMillan.

I started out the race with the 7:00-7:15 pacer to make sure I didn't go out too fast. We hit the first mark at 7:13 and I thought it felt slow. I wanted to take advantage of the downhill (he was running even splits off his garmin), so I left him and ran 6:46 on the next downhill mile. Mile 3 was 7:03 -- good -- and then miles 4 and 5 were 7:15 and 7:09 -- not so good. Then I hit a groove: 7:00, 7:00, 6:59, 6:59, 6:53, and 7:03. I was at 1:10:25 at mile 10 (25 secs behind 7mm pace), thinking maybe by some miracle I could speed up and recover the time. Then the steep hill just before 11 broke me and I started to fade (the rest of the course being uphill didn't help). 10-12 was 14:48 or 7:24 per mile (missed mile 11). Last 1.1 was 8:14 (7:24 pace). Well the end of the story is the 7:00-7:15 pacer passed me in the last quarter mile. Ugh.

Heart rates/splits were 174 (7:13 -- HRM was way off for the first mile), 173 (6:46), 7:03 (178), 7:15 (177), 7:09 (178), 7:00 (178), 7:00 (179), 6:59 (179), 6:53 (180), 7:02 (180), 14:48 (7:24, 180), 8:14 (7:25, 180). Somehow the software calls the average 180? I think the HRM's trouble in the first mile screwed up the averaging. My math from the splits says ~178. I averaged 180 and 182 in my previous halfs. I averaged 180 at the 10-miler in the spring though.

It's looking pretty grim for 3:15. 1:33:27 is slower than a 1:09:49 10 miler. Am I really in worse shape? Well, it was a harder course and I didn't push myself quite as hard, but I expected to be farther along. McMillan puts me at 3:17 based on the half, but other calculators still say 3:14-3:15. It looks like there's a good chance I'll finish just out of the money. I'm thinking of going back to what I was doing in the spring -- intervals on Tues and tempo on Thursday -- instead of what I'm doing now -- more mileage but only doing intervals or tempo once a week. With 6 weeks left though, maybe I should just dance with the one (Pfitz 70mpw) that brung me though.