For a long time I had a personal goal to run a sub 1:20 half marathon. I attempted it many times but the closest I came was last year at the Pittsburgh half marathon with 1:21:25. According to my coach I am in shape to run a sub 1:20 but his estimation for this hilly course (700feet elevation gain) was a low 1:21. Despite of that, his race plan called for a little more aggressive approach to run 5:55min/mile in the flats and hold a similar effort on the hills. I felt okay on race morning, but during the warm up I felt sluggish and my legs were a little sore. It just didn’t feel like it. But I tried to ignore that thought and had my mind set on improving at least my PR somewhat even if it won’t be a sub 1:20.

Start line. The guy in yellow won. Note the lady in black next to him. She lined up in the front line and finished with a 2.5+h time, I'll never understand people like her?

It was a smaller half marathon with only 1200 people and for once the front line was super sparse. I thought for once I won’t start too fast since people seem more relaxed. Well I was proven wrong once we were allowed to start. They guy in yellow darted off and I initially followed him, but realized quickly that his pace was much faster than mine. Once I left him go two other guys ran past me and tried to catch up to the first guy. I quickly fell back and had already a 20 second gap at the first mile marker. This even though I did the first mile in 5:40min. There was no one close behind me and the 3 ahead of me continued to pull away. At mile 2 I was 1min back from the 3rd person and the first two were even further up the road. At mile 3 I couldn’t see them anymore and I was left to ran alone for the rest of the race.

Shortly after the start. Ahead of the field two people in yellow and than me leading the field to the first turn 🙂

All I did was focusing on my pace and moving ahead. I felt pretty good even though my HR was close to 180 pretty much from the beginning on. Around mile 4 or 5 my calf’s started hurting from all the hills. But it was more of tired tightness which didn’t worry me and I just tried to ignore it. I passed mile 6 in 36:15 which meant I was still on route for a PR and potentially even sub 1:20. I was already tired but I was totally in control. It was a great feeling. The downhill around mile 8 was pretty steep, so that I had to slow down which hurt my quads. Not often am I trying to run down a hill in full speed but at least with that hill I ran a 5:40min/mile. This was right before the last long hill which balanced the 5:40 out with a 6:27min/mile.

At the 10mile marker the watch showed 1:00:37 which was on course for a sub 1:20. Pre race I decided to put it all out on the 10mile marker with basically only a 5k left. But it was still slightly uphill and my calf’s were hurting. I decided to stay conservative till I was on top of the hill. A few hundred yards later on top of the hill, the soundtrack from Rocky was blasting from someones living room and the family there were cheering for me. I figured this was the signal that I have to push harder now 🙂 I knew that it was mostly downhill to the finish and I started pushing harder.
Unfortunately, at that point I started to overtake the stragglers from the 5mile run which sometimes were walking 3-4 abreast and blocking the whole path.
I was pretty annoying that I had to yell at them to make space but than that might helped me to run faster. I was excited to see that I ran a  5:48 on the 2nd last mile and that sub 1:20 definitely was in reach if I keep pushing. It was getting harder and harder, but I didn’t care I wanted my new PR. A spectator along the way told me that I was in 3rd place. “hmm, 3rd? what happened to the other guy? He must have just miscounted!”.

Me pushing hard on the final mile

The last couple 100 yards were all slightly downhill and I could see the finish from afar. I checked my watch and it said 1:17. At that point my brain wasn’t working that well anymore, but I knew that if I would go hard I could still make it. Once I came closer I saw the race clock and noticed with a sprint I could even go sub 1:19. So I did, I pushed hard and made it past the finish line in 1:18:48.

I still don’t know what happened but apparently 2 guys in front of me didn’t finish because I came in 2nd. And once again since the winner was in the same age group and took the overall win, I received the first place award for my Age group, which was a nice looking trophy 🙂

I finally achieved my goal to run a sub 1:20 half marathon. I still have a hard time to believe that I ran a 6:01min/mile for 13.1mile. Since I improved my old PR by over 2.5 minutes I wonder if I could do even better =D

The only unpleasant part of the day was finding the motivation to go for my 3h training ride 🙂

Race Result:

HR and Pace: