Boston Run to Remember - 1st Half Marathon!

So after 18 weeks of training, the day finally came...my first half marathon!

I didn't really know what to expect as I have never been to a race this large before, a total of 5800 runners were signed up for the race. It was quite the experience to say the least, the crowds were crazy and on the way to the finish people were pushing out into the street and we literally ran through what felt like a 3 foot wide chute to the finish line.

Now on to the actual race...

Based on some advice, I decided to start near the front, near the 6:00 min/mile pace, as supposedly people don't line up based on their actual pace.  After the gun went off, everyone took off pretty quickly and with all the excitement I was right along side them.  After about 2 miles in the first time clock was showing under 14 minutes which is when I realized I was running way too fast.

My first four mile splits were: 6:05, 6:15, 7:25, 7:45.  I tried to slow down but didn't want to slow down too much and the people around me were passing me so it was tough.  I finally settled into an 8:00 pace which is where I wanted to stay.  I did have some issues at the water stops as drinking out of a cup while running is something I have yet to master and I had to go back to get water twice because I got Gatorade.  Around mile 10, we hit two back to back hills that took their toll on me and many others who started walking, so I had to drop my pace way down.  I would say mile 11 was by far the hardest simply because I was running out of gas and it felt like it dragged on forever. 

My official net time was 1:49:22, just about 4 minutes slower than I was hoping to run on the perfect day, so I was pretty happy since it was pretty hot and humid compared to the weather I trained in.

If I learned one thing from this that I will take forward, it is that you need to run your own race as I proved in training I could hold an 8:00 pace for all 13 miles but by going out too fast I hit a pretty hard wall.  I am going to run another half marathon at the end of the summer near the conclusion of my marathon training so I am hoping to break the 1:40:00 mark this year.

I hope to have some pictures to post shortly from the race and afterwards.

So ends my 13.1 adventure and now after a few weeks of some base maintenance I'll be moving on to a new one, 26.2...