Race report -


I ran 1:06:34 (5:04 pace) at this year's City of Oaks half marathon. Unfortunately for my legs, I didn't actually run that pace at any point. I went out in a stupidly slow 5:31 for the first mile and had to scramble to get the pace back down to a reasonable 5:10 on the hillier first half of the course. About 7 miles in I stretched out the legs on the open and flatter sections and started dropping it down some more, but really had to hit the gas the last 5k to run a respectable time.

Lessons:

- Execute your race plan from the first step and don't rely on others to do it for you, unless you're racing to win without regard for time, in that case, things are much more complicated.

- Don't freak out when you're going too slow. By easing the pace back down, I didn't blow up. I'm confident I could have run under 1:06 if I had just been steady the whole race and opened up toward the end. Though in this particular race, I would have placed the same and gotten the same money for it, so I guess it's not all bad.