SF Half Marathon Race Report

Like I wrote in my last post, I was satisfied with my training coming into this race. Since I did not have a very specific time goal for this race I was really anxious to see what I can pull out on race day. Butterflies and anxiety had started showing its way by Thursday. No matter how many of these you do they always show up for me !! I went to the expo on Friday to collect my race packet. I did not waste too much time at the expo. Just a quick browse through all the booths and back home.

Expo

Race Weekend:
Team Asha, East Bay had planned a carbo load lunch on Saturday for all the first time runners  (and old runners) at Satya's place. Thanks Satya for opening your home and for delicious pasta !! So half of the Saturday went listening to coaches and talking to friends. Its just so amazing that even after running for more than a year you still hear something and think Ah!! I never thought about it. That was some quality time spent learning lot of new tricks from the experts. Get this--San Francisco full marathon was Arun's 50th Marathon.  We already have another coach who ran his 100th Marathon last year. Team Asha has some seriously talented coaches !!

Race Strategy:
Really ? Aren't you just suppose to go as hard as possible until your heart explode and then suffer for the rest of the race:) Apparently not :) I talked to Jeremy on Saturday to discuss how to run the race. It actually turned out quite simple. His advice was to keep the HR below/close to 175 bpm. at least during the beginning miles of the race and then run the later miles completely based on perceived exertion keeping heart rate as good indicator of it. Simple enough, right ?? To make sure I follow this properly I decided to try to follow the 4 hour pacer group (for full marathon) for initial half race and then run my own race towards the later miles. Running at 9:08 pace with fresh legs was  manageable for me.

Race Day:
SF marathon is an early race with the first wave starting at 5:30 am. So the plan was to get up early at 3 and catch the team asha organized shuttle to start point. As expected there was hardly any sleep on Saturday night. But once I was up I was ready to roll. My pre race day breakfast involved two whole wheat toast with cashew butter and one bonk-breaker peanut butter jelly bar. Due to some delays we reached the start point later than expected.There was hardly any time for warm up and I immediately lined up to get into my wave. I was placed in wave 4 with start time of 5:50. But since 4 hour pacer group was suppose to be in wave 5 I decided to switch to wave 5 (Big mistake #1).  I also convinced Ramesh to join me in wave 5. Once we entered wave 5 we made our way to the front and there was no 4 hour pacer group !! Apparently, 4 hour pacer group went with wave 4. What the heck!!! By the time I realized that it was too late. So my first part of race strategy was in dustbin :) At that point, I had two options: 1) Follow the 4:15 pacer group or 2) just run your own race from the beginning hoping i will not blow up myself in the beginning miles. I decided to go with first option. You can see how confident I am with my pacing abilities :) and off we went.

Mr. Flash came to say good luck in the morning :)

Mile 1-3:
Within first 3-4 mins of following the 4:15 pacer group I felt that pace was really slow. So I decided to go on my own and do my own race. I started putting up some effort so as to bring my HR up and once I saw it was close to 170-172 my pace was around mid 8:40ish. This was perfect. I kept telling myself not to push harder. Stay there. Keep it there. I kept checking my garmin every few seconds to make sure I was staying there. But within first mile I felt some pull in my abductor muscle and it started hurting me with every step. I guess when you don't warm up properly things can go south especially if you are pushing yourself. This slowed me down a bit and Ramesh caught up with me. I told him about my muscle pull since he also had the same issue couple of weeks back. He said the only way to fix it was to take rest. Not something I could do in race. I decided to take it by the mile and see how it feels. We ran about 2 miles together and he patiently listened to me while I whined about the late arrival, wave goof up and the muscle pull. He wanted to take quick walking break before we hit our first major hill at 2.5 mile so we decided to run our own race and then meet up at the end. My previous two weeks of hill training at SF came in really handy when we hit the first hill. I went hard confidently and I crushed it without stopping or gasping for air. Sweet!! That was probably the only positive thing that had happened so far till that time!!

Mile 3-5:
As soon as we crossed hill @ fort masion we entered another long flat terrain. Before the race I had decided to push hard (i.e., go beyond 175 bpm) in those 3 flat miles (Knowing the race course in advance does really help !!). But when I looked at the watch i was already moving at 8:45-8:50ish pace which was already 15+ seconds faster than 2 hour half marathon pace (9:08) so I decided to stick with it. Surprisingly, my heart rate was still under 175 beats at that time and effort felt bit hard but still manageable.

Miles 6-9:
Mile 5 to mile 6 was the steepest climb of the race. This was the part where we would hit the golden gate bridge after the climb. Having done that climb (atleast part of it) multiple times I knew how hard it was. First thing I did was stop looking ahead and at my watch. That climb is REALLY long. I kept telling myself put your head down and keep moving. It will be over in no time.  Once we reached the top I was just beyond happy.  I did not stop a single time on the climb and considering I had walked the whole hill last year it was definitely big personal victory for me and testament on how far I have come in my fitness. When I got my mile alert my pace for mile 6 had dropped from 8:40is to 9:47. But who cares !!

A quick check on my garmin and I saw my avg pace had fallen from 8:40ish to 8:55ish. But still under 9:00. This was the first time I thought may be just may be I can get a sub 2 if I run the rest half of my race well. It was game on !! At least I thought so :)  My plan was to run hard on the bridge and try get my avg pace back to 8:40ish before we hit the last 5k of the race. The only information I had about the last 5k was that it was full of rolling hills. So having some cushion for slower pace seemed a good idea....

Mile 7 went fast. My pace for that mile was 8:29. But then that's where it all started going south. There was seriously no room to run on the bridge. Instead of focusing on running I was just trying to navigate through the people and survive all the hits. This was really really frustrating. Every now and then someone would just start walking without moving to the side and every now and then I came across people who would just stop running, pop their camera and start clicking pictures without moving to the side. Some random person even asked me to take her picture. Seriously ?? How about I throw you off the bridge and take that picture (OK I did not tell her that). Seriously, that part of the race was just crap. Firstly, the organizers did not secure enough space for people to run comfortably (especially when they charge exorbitant amount of money as race fee) and then I was paying for my bad decision to start with slower group in the beginning. I was definitely looking forward to running on the golden bridge all along but I certainly wasn't enjoying the experience.

At the turn around point (vista point) I saw my garmin for the first time and it still said 8:55ish pace. But honestly, I was just not interested in it anymore. I just wanted to get done with the rest of the bridge portion. At the vista point water stop I drank atleast 4-5 glass of water/gatorade. No idea what happened there but I guess my mind was just out of the race at that point. I had same experience while coming back but it was slightly better (probably because I navigated through a sea of slow runners in the first half). By the time I reached the end of the bridge I was feeling really uneasy in the stomach, mind filled with all negative thoughts and flaring abductor muscle in left leg.

Mile 9-13:

Are we there, yet ??

At the end of the bridge, I decided to take my first real walking break. I badly needed that to clear my head now that nightmare was over. My pace hadn't made much progress and it was still around 8:55ish. But it was not relevant any more. Good thing about the last part of the race was i had no idea about the course. So it kind of made the plan simple. Go about it as it comes. Mile 10 was another small hill followed by big downhill at mile 11. That portions went fast (not by pace :)). Mile 12 consisted of 3 rolling hills with increasing elevation. Probably, that was the last challenge in the course. So without thinking much I took each hill as it came. By the time I came to third hill I was running slower than I walk !! So it was time to just walk the hill. Once on the top of hill I started doing running/walking thing for the next mile. When I reached mile 13 marker I saw avg pace pop to 9 min/mile. What !! I did not expect that. I had stopped looking at the watch after the bridge so that was kind of good surprise. So I still had a chance to make a sub 2 time, really ? That just refreshed me. At the last right turn I started hearing the music and announcer announcing names. I just sprinted as hard as I could. When I crossed the finishing line and saw the time 1:59. AWESOME!!!

After race carnage:
I regrouped with Ramesh, Samar and Vishal at the end of the race. Everybody had an incredible day. I asked them about their experience on the bridge and everybody had the same experience. I was happy to know that I was not the only whinny baby out there. Did someone remember that flaring abductor muscle ?? Well I ignored the pain during the race but it surely made a grand appearance at the end once my body started cooling down. I did not wait long at the race afterwards and went home to see how bad it was. Turned out I could not lift my left leg an inch from ground without screaming like a little girl. I told you I learned few cool tricks at the carbo load, right ?? One of them was to walk backwards on the stairs if you have such issues. Works so well. So for next few days if you see me climbing stairs backwards don't ask me why :)

Showing off our hardware

Samar, Vishal me and Ramesh..Training buddies. Solid race for all of us

I guess sometimes I just think too much about pace/time/speed etc and in the process forget about how much I enjoy running and how far I have come from last year. Last year I could barely run 100 meters without taking (long) walking breaks. It took me 2:58 to finish the course. One year later, I have shaved off ~60 mins on the same course. This was also a new over all PR by 10 mins. This by far was the biggest satisfaction. I cant wait to get back on to the training wheel and see how much we can get out of my body by the year end. But for now its time to rest and recover quickly :)

Garmin file from SF half 2011:
 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/103204119

Garmin file from SF half 2012:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/204484658