{"id":122,"date":"2012-05-13T21:51:28","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T04:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/?p=122"},"modified":"2012-05-13T21:51:28","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T04:51:28","slug":"pittsburgh-halfmarathon-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/archives\/122","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Halfmarathon 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

I entered this race with high expectations. After my PR on this course last year<\/a>, I was expecting to set another PR. I even was hoping to go sub 1:20.<\/p>\n

According to my coach I was in shape to get a high 1:20 or low 1:21 finish time. His pacing strategy for me was to start out with a 6:10min\/mile and keep the pace till halfway and then speed up to 6:00-6:05min\/mile if I feel good. Assumed that I would be able to speed up at half way point as planned together with a finish sprint I could get close to a sub 1:20 time. So far so good.<\/p>\n

The week into the race, I tried to adjust my schedule to the east coast time by getting up earlier. Since the race would start 4:30am west coast time. Unfortunately, because of work and other events, I wasn’t able to go to bed earlier and therefore wasn’t as successful with this time adjustment. I flew out Friday (red-eye flight) and just spend the weekend in Pittsburgh. I arrived in Pittsburgh had lunch and went for an easy 25min jog in the afternoon. It was much warmer in Pittsburgh than in Seattle and I realized that my HR was much higher than usual even though I was running a very easy 9:30min\/mile.<\/p>\n

Amy and I were starting in the Pittsburgh marathon for the 4th time and knew by now how to maneuver the city. Based on my previous times I had a seeded starting number and was able to line up right behind the elite. I was about in the 4th row when the race started. I tried hard not to start to fast and crossed the first mile marker after 6min 8seconds. A big group going at about the same speed was 30m ahead of me. I would have liked to catch up and pushed a tiny bit harder to not jeopardize my strategy too much. But that wasn’t enough to close in and I decided to stick with my plan and follow my own pace. This also meant that I was running alone from mile 2 onwards. Around mile 2-3 I had my first doubts if I can hold this pace. I knew that my HR was higher than in other races and was above threshold. It also didn’t settle down 15min into the race. In addition to that, I felt my quads slightly burning on every incline. I tried to ignore these thoughts and stick with my plan. I told myself that if I would give up if it gets a little harder I would never get a PR.<\/p>\n

At the halfway point, I was tired and exhausted I didn’t believe it was realistic to push the pace and tried to stick with a 6:10min\/mile. I was thinking about my last half marathon on in Bellingham, where I felt great at the half way point and then slowly started to push the pace. Not so much this time. Well the sub 1:20 was off the table, but I could still do a new PR if I wouldn’t fall apart. Every little hill made my quads burn and I was wondering how I should get up the one mile long hill on mile 11. But than I was even more worried to get there without loosing to much time. Around mile 8 I felt better for a while and I got some new hope to finish with a new PR. Shortly after the tiredness was back, the first time this year I also felt to be short of breath. Normally I am limited due to muscle strength but this time I couldn’t get enough air into my body. All my focus was to get to mile 11 without slowing down. I don’t remember much of that part of the race, except that I finally caught up with a runner in front of me and I just tried to keep pace with her (Note: As it turns out she is in the USA national marathon team). For that part of the course, I was in my own world, just focusing on the pace and trying to ignore my body. It felt like waking up at mile 11 when I looked up the hill and knew that now was the time of truth, where I would find out if I could make a new PR. I wanted to slow down as little as possible knowing that the last mile was all downhill. Unfortunately my pace quickly dropped below a 6:30min\/mile.<\/p>\n

\"Pittsburgh<\/a>Eventually, I could see the top of the hill and also that the 12mile mark was there. Which means after that it would only go downhill. Finally I was on top of the hill and started to increase my pace again, and there I could see the finish pretty much a 1miles straight downhill. I pushed the pace and my watch indicated that I was running well below a 6min\/mile. I overtook a couple of other runners. To my surprise they didn’t even try to stick with me. One last little hill up to the finish and I crossed the finish line in 1:21:25. (I ran the last mile in 5min 40sec)<\/p>\n

This time placed me 49 out of 12134 runners and 12th in my age group.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Amy finished the half marathon in 1:59:34 which is exactly the same time as her previous PR from Philadelphia in 2009. But the course here in Pittsburgh is much harder. Congratulations!<\/p>\n

Race Results<\/a><\/p>\n

Run HR and Pace<\/a>
\nNote: I stopped my watch right on the finish line. For the first time my Garmin measured too much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I entered this race with high expectations. After my PR on this course last year, I was expecting to set another PR. I even was hoping to go sub 1:20. According to my coach I was in shape to get a high 1:20 or low 1:21 finish time. His pacing strategy for me was to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-run"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zgraggen.name\/racing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}