Staten Island Half Marathon +6

Today was the Staten Island Half marathon. I planned to get there early to pick up my number and run 6 miles before the race started. Unfortunately, I hit sleep on my alarm 4 times to many. So, I finally left my apartment around 6:35 hoping to maybe make it on the 7am ferry but definitely making the 7:30. No such luck on either. The 2/3 trains were running local and so it took FOREVER to get downtown and then there were so many people in the ferry terminal that the 7:30 ferry was full before I could board. So, I ended up on the 8am ferry and didn't end up starting the race till about 8:50am! (the race started at 8:30!)

So, off I went. It was unseasonably warm--lovely for hanging out and lounging in the park but not so lovely for a 19 mile run. My plan was to go out at about a 9:30 pace then speed up after mile 5 and do the last 8 miles at around race pace. Spencer told us to do 7 miles at race pace but last year he had us do 10 on this same run so I figured 8 would be okay. Then for the last 6 miles I'd take it super easy and just finish up as strong as possible considering the weather.

By mile 3 I was sweating profusely. I tend to sweat more than normal people--ask my fellow warriors. So I was concerned about getting dehydrated. Then, I also did my run today sans heart rate monitor b/c it's on the fritz. So I was also concerned that I was going to go out too hard and not be able to finish strong. But, I pretty much stuck to the plan. here are my splits:

1: 9:26
2: 9:13
3: 9:31
4: 9:30
5: 8:55
6: 8:32
7: 8:37
8: 8:58
9: 8:28
10: 8:33
11: 8:44
12: 8:36
13: 8:26
14: 9:36
15: 9:37
16: 9:51
17: 10:04
18: 9:29
19: 9:38

I felt pretty good about the pacing. Mile 8 was really tough b/c of a long steep uphill so I didn't quite hold the pace there but I made up for it on some of the other race pace miles. As you can see, after i crossed the finish line of the race, I slowed down considerably--at my slowest I did a 10:04 mile. I'm not sure why that mile was so slow, except that at this point it was after 11am and approaching 80 degrees and there wasn't very much gatorade left on the course. (I doubled back onto the course for my last 6 miles which invited comments from folks on the street that I was going the wrong way and then when I turned around one guy yelled not to cheat...I yelled back, actually i finished 30 minutes ago!!)

The race made me feel pretty confident about my ability to race the NYC marathon well. I felt strong during the race pace miles despite the heat and felt like i could have kept up that pace for a while. Just one last week of heavy mileage and then it's time to taper!!!

As a side note I also had 2 good workouts on Thursday and Friday. Thursday was a solo 5.5 miler and Friday we did repeats on the 59th street bridge. Felt super strong on both :)