SUNDAY – Marion, IA – ½ Marathon and Marathon Relay
Man, this year is full of surprises and Sunday was no
exception! On a cool rainy morning I
somehow managed to blast a 6:25 average to shatter my ½ Marathon PR by almost
10 minutes! It is really thanks to the
extra push from running the first ½ as part of a marathon relay team, it forced
me to get out of my comfort zone and run a pace I normally would have never
started at.
My plan for the race was to go out around a 6:40 pace for
the first ½ of the race and then drop back to a 6:50 and try to hold on to the
end. Once the race started however I
fell into a comfortable 6:30 pace and carried it through the first ½ of the
race. After the handoff I got to run
with Scott(who ran the 2nd leg of our relay) for about the next mile
which was beyond awesome, he total lifted my
spirits and I was able to bounce my thoughts off of someone instead of
letting them fill up my head…. the mile flew by at a quick pace and by the time
I started off on my own again I only had about 6 miles left of the race… this
is where the race went from fun to downright exciting!
The second half of the race was where I had prepared to
crash, I had taken off at a pace nearly 30 seconds per mile faster than my
previous PR and did not expect to hold it through the end. However mile after mile I felt stronger and
stronger and my pace continued to drop; every mile I expected to hit a wall but
instead found myself feeling just fantastic and completely in control, by mile
13 I hit a 5:47 pace and felt incredible!
I ended the race at a 1:25:50 and was excited to find the course was
about .3 miles long so my adjusted time would have been 1:24:14, almost 10
minutes faster than my last ½ marathon in November J
There is a lot I can take away from this race, the most
exciting stat for me is that I was running nearly 40 seconds faster than Boston
pace over this race… I have about 6 months of training left before my first
attempt at qualifying and I am happy with my progression so far. I’m also looking to retune some splits and
goals as I’m much further ahead than I thought I would be, a very good feeling
to have. I ended up finishing 10th
place overall in the ½ and our relay team crushed 1st place,
finishing over 15 minutes ahead of the 2nd place team… it was a great
showing for DBQ runners!
Check out Shannon's Video Below....
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