Tuesday, March 20, 2012

6 Tunnels 1/2 Marathon Race Report

This was a race I have ran a few times in the past and today I was looking at it as a long hard training day. The weather had been warm a day or two before but a change in weather was on the move. It was cooling down and winds were reported to be picking up. My Cousin Mary had been in town so we dropped her off at the airport prior to heading to the race, I wasn't sure what to wear so had a couple of options on what to wear, shorts or tights, and had a couple of tech shirts. I ended up going with the shorts and both tech shirts, one long sleeve and my one of my Maui 1/2 Mary shirts. I took the long sleeve one off about 5 miles into the run and it was perfect temp.

This course goes out away from the lake initially about 2 or 3 miles up hill then turns back to the tunnels, when you get to the tunnels it's a gravel road pretty much the balance of the race, which I like. There are two or three short steep hills around mile 9 near the second turn coming back to the tunnels, which really suck btw. the first 1/4 of the race I took at a pretty good effort then shortly after the turn I backed off a little until about mile 10 and picked it up just a bit and held that pace until the last 1/4 or 1/2 mile. The wind picked up shortly after the race started or maybe even before but it certainly picked up as the race progressed. I did a fair job of drafting when I could, @ 6'2" good drafting candidates were far and few between. A couple of notable drafting times a young girl probably just over 5ft got on my hip and stayed there for the longest time, it was nice to have a little company another time and I think she was still behind me a young lady I was drafting off of the best I could in some brutal wind, I looked behind me and there was a line of like 6 people tucked in behind me. Somewhere around mile 8 close to the dam I was running with another gentleman near my age and a gust of wind came up that almost brought both of us to a standstill.

All in all in was happy with my effort especially considering the conditions and very pleased with my time. I think it was like 1:54:xx 162 overall out of 6xx peeps and 6th out of my Age Group,,,,, you know the old fat man with grand kids age group. :)

It does make me curious as to what I could have done in Maui as that was an A race, well until I came down with the Flu the day before and an easier course. Oh well that's life and in the big scheme of things not a big deal.

It looks like the next race will be Leadman 125 Vegas, unless I come to my senses. Let's see Silverman, Ironman, is there a Copperman? All 1/2s or 70.3s btw.