Yesterday was the 2017 Surf City Half Marathon in Huntington Beach, CA. I completed it for the third straight year. I ran the Disney Star Wars 1/2 three weeks ago in 2:05, so my hopes for this race were to better that time slightly, and once again finish strong, and injury free! Here are some details:
Pre-Race:
I woke up at 4:00am, ate a plain bagel with strawberry jam, and drank a cup of coffee while making sure I had all the gear I wanted to bring. By 4:30 I was heading out the door to meet the PTC Sprinter van for the ride to Huntington Beach. The race isn't until 7:45am, but we roll out early to beat the insane traffic heading up Beach Blvd. on race morning. I relaxed in the hotel with the team, sipping on a bottle of Infinit Jet Fuel until it was time to head out to the Pacers tent and get set to race.
The Race:
The weather was nice and cool. Cloudy, low to mid 50's and barely any detectable wind. You can't ask for better conditions. I decided not to wear sunglasses, but opted to keep my visor on in case the clouds burned off. The last 5 miles can really suck if the sun is out, and right in your face. I went to the corrals and walked to what I thought was pretty close to the front. As it turned out, I was at the back of the 2nd corral, which turned out to be just fine. I waited a few minutes, and finally it was time to head out onto the course.
Miles 1 through 4:
I felt very relaxed for the first two miles. I chose not to look at my watch until the 2 mile split ticked off, to see what my pace would be if I just stayed extremely relaxed. I was averaging about 9:10 pace, which was ideal. However, over the next two miles, I started feeling a bit lethargic. I really had to focus to keep my form tight and my pace on target. I started to get the feeling that I was in for a very bad day.
Miles 4 through 11:
Just before 4 miles, there is a medium length hill to go up. I was not looking forward to it, considering my energy levels. But surprisingly, the extra effort I spent to drive my arms and knees up the hill helped me snap out of my funk. Once the hill flattened back out, I fell into a much more natural rhythm and started to feel a lot better. By the 6 mile mark, I was feeling so much better that I considered increasing my tempo, and even started thinking about whether or not to try and beat my 2015 time (which was 1:58). However, I decided to play it smart and keep an even pace. I promised myself that if I still felt this strong at mile 11, I could kick in the final two miles. I hit the halfway point in under 1:02, so I knew I had a 2:03 (or better) if I could hold my pace. The last stretch out to the turnaround seemed to take forever, but finally I got to the 8 mile mark, and the turnaround and still felt very good. I decided to play a little mental game by completely ignoring the 9 mile marker and just focusing on getting to 10 miles. That seemed to make things go by a lot faster. At the 10 mile mark, I focused a lot on my heart rate. The last real "hill" of the race comes before mile 11, so I wanted to keep things under control so that I could push the last two miles hard. My splits were are still really even, so I was still on 2:03 pace if I just maintained to the finish. I figured I had a realistic chance to drop an extra minute per mile off of the last two miles, putting me at around a 2:01 finish time. The 11 mile marker came up, and I slowly eased into a faster pace.
Mile 11 to The Finish:
My HR definitely rose along with my pace, but I was now less than 2 miles to go, and I routinely do negative splits on my training runs, so I was very confident that there was more than enough in the tank to get me to the finish. Since I increased my pace, I was suddenly finding slower runners to be obstacles. So, I moved to the far left were things seemed to be more open. I could see the 12 mile mark off in the distance, when all of a sudden I felt a very distinct and painful POP in my left ankle. My first thought was that it felt like someone poked the inside of my ankle (maybe an inch above the bone) with a sharp stick. It hurt enough to bring me to an immediate stop. I sat down on the median and took a look. Nothing looked swollen, scratched, red, or anything. And the pain subsided after I massaged the area for 15 or 20 seconds. I stood up and walked a few yards and all seemed well, so I eased back into a slow jog. I thought things might be okay but after about 50 yards, I felt the same sharp pain again. Now I was getting worried. Did I sprain something? Tear something? What was going on? I checked my Garmin and I was at 11.7 miles. I could certainly walk it in, but was not too happy about that. After walking for maybe 30 seconds, I started shuffling again. Every so often, I'd feel the sharp pain. But instead of stopping, I would just walk quickly. I knew I could kiss my 2:01 finish goodbye, but I didn't care. I was more concerned about whether or not I had seriously injured myself just a few weeks before IM70.3 Taiwan. I managed to do this shuffle/walk method until about 12.5 miles, at which point I discovered that if I took really short steps, without flexing my ankles too much, I could avoid the pain. So I did this, with a ridiculously high cadence, all the way to the finish. I was glad to cross the line, but it felt strange getting to the end without even being tired. The walk/run stuff allowed me to recover for the most part. My time was slow, but had it not been for the ankle pain, I am 100% sure I was looking at a 2:01 or so, which is still an improvement over my last race (as this course is definitely harder than Disney).
Finishing Time: 2:07
Overall and AG Place: ??? (didn't bother looking them up)
So the time was slower than I was hoping, but despite the problems, I felt strong at the end, and ran very evenly and controlled, even when I was having energy problems early in the race. This is a good confidence booster going into a 70.3, since it shows me I can fight back from a bad situation, even with a lot of miles left to go.
Update on the ankle injury: throughout the rest of Sunday and overnight, my ankle seemed to recover. I have no clue what caused the pain. By the time I saw my doctor (on Monday in the afternoon), there was no pain to speak of, and he could not find anything wrong with my ankle or foot. He thinks I likely strained something, but not badly enough for it to persist. The important thing was that no catastrophic injury like an Achilles tear or anything like that took place.
Details:
Some notes about the race...
Nutrition:
I ate a bagel with jam about 3.5 hours before the race (and drank some coffee), and sipped on Infinit Jet Fuel until about 25 minutes before the race. On course, I drank at about half of the aid stations. Once I drank the electrolyte drink they gave out, but otherwise it was just plain water. I had no hydration issues, no cramps (unless that weird pain in the ankle was some sort of severe cramp).
Gear:
I ran in my Hoka One One Bondi 4's again, but I used medium thickness socks instead of ultra thin, since I blistered at Disney using the latter. Oddly enough, it seemed to make no difference, as I blistered exactly the same way again. I have no idea why I blister in races, when I am running virtually the same pace I do in training runs. I may experiment with different shoe inserts to see if that helps. My Garmin 910XT and HR monitor strap performed just fine. I used RoadRunner Sports shorts instead of my Nike Dri-Fit, and had no chafing issues at all.
Logistics:
This is a PTC event, so we all meet up in Eagle Rock at 5am and drive into HB together. Even though we arrive almost 2 hours ahead of the race, it helps avoid the stress of finding parking, fighting traffic, etc. This is a huge advantage of being part of a team with a lot of experienced racers planning things out.
Next Race: I'm scheduled for the Firecracker 10K, but I am debating skipping it and focusing on swimming/biking/weights this week. We'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment