Tag Archives: Half Marathon

My Shiney New PR from the Big Sur Half

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The Big Sur Half Marathon has topped my list of half marys since I ran it last year (read my recap of that race here). There are several reasons why this race is favored by many runners (not just myself). The course is stunningly beautiful, it has nice rolling hills rather than difficult steep hills or boring flat routes. And Big Sur is a great race organizer (there are only a few race organizations that I put in this category, the SF Marathon is another good example).

Last year when I ran the race I was smack in the middle of my running rut. I could not seem to run at my previous speed anymore. My official time at Big Sur was 2:04 and some change (granted I did have a bathroom break and the course according the GPS watches (acknowledging their flaws) seems a tad long). But I was still happy at that race as I knew without the bathroom break I would have had a slightly faster run and it was quicker than my previous half marathons.

This year was a whole difficult ballgame. I joined a running team (SC Endurance), was more consistent with my running, did more speed workouts & long runs, and Big Sur fell at the tail end of my marathon training plan. And well, let’s be honest, 2012 has been my personal year of the PR. Just to recap, in April I finally fell well below the 2 hour mark finish the US Half 2 (now Rock n Roll San Francisco) at 1:54 and then finally beat my 2-year-old PR at the Capitola Half with a finishing time of 1:45:44 (running a 1:45 half marathon was a huge goal of mine). After that I secured a new PR in the 5k and in the 6 mile distance as well as creating some new personal course records. In July, I created a new half PR at the SF Marathon (1:43:03).

After all this, I knew I could do well at Big Sur. It was my ideal course with its rolling hills. I also knew that I wanted to do well at this race to have it in my mind when I run my marathon in just under 2 weeks (wow, how did that happen??). So I decided I had two plans for this past Sunday. 1) Aim for a 7:38 pace which should get me to 1:40 finish time and a PR or 2) Run a marathon pace for this course. I decided I would go by feel to determine which goal I would pursue.

Pre race with the FIL

Corral A

It was a long weekend. I went to the expo on Friday to pick up my gear but I was back there Saturday to volunteer for the SF Marathon booth. I got to see several other SF ambassadors, including meeting Paulette for the first time! I was tired and cranky after the long Saturday and this was not made better while waiting for dinner. But after some delicious pasta I felt better. I drove down with my father-in-law, who is also a runner and raced Big Sur as well, and saw that the rain had subsided. Woohoo! When the race started, I felt strong and decided to go for goal 1. Every mile I ran was under 8 minutes, with the fastest at 7:22 and the slowest at 7:53. My last two miles were very consistent despite fatigue, clocking in at 7:45 each. I immediately knew after the first mile that course was a bit long but it was not abnormal (I also know that the course could be perfect but GPS tracks it a bit long). According to my watch, the course was 13:31 and I ran an average 7:36 pace. At the 13.1 mark by my watch I was at 1:39:40, but I ended up finishing at 1:41:19. A PR by nearly 2 minutes!! Woohoo! And 23 minutes better than last year. 23 minutes!!!

PR!

This race went exactly how I wanted it to. I felt strong the first 9-10 miles and fatigue in my legs set in around mile 10-11. My shoes felt a little off, even though I’ve worn them in a half marathon and some long runs before. This could have been due to wearing new socks. Anyway, for the first 8 miles or so I just smiled like crazy. I knew I was feeling good and no one can overstate the beauty of the Pacific Grove & Carmel coast. After the turn around I saw Alisyn and my father-in-law.  Miles 11 and 12 were tough and I knew that even if I slowed to a 8 minute pace, I would still meet my goal of a PR. But I pushed through. I saw Kevin and his mom right before the finish, gave them a big thumbs up, and sprinted to the end. What a great race!

Almost to the finish!

Love the Big Sur medals

Happy Meg

And now… CIM!

Grape Stomp Half Marathon Recap

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I can’t believe I’m just writing this recap now, this race happened nearly a month ago! Whoops. You can also read about it on the Santa Cruz Endurance blog.

The weekend of October 20-21, I ran my 2nd of 3 half marathons of the fall (so much for taking it easier with my racing schedule!). My friends and fellow SCE runners, Elise and Leslie, joined me as we journeyed to Livermore for wine and running.

We headed out mid morning on Saturday and after a few detours (missing an exit due to distractions such as a car on fire and some confusing map directions), we finally made it to Livermore. None of us had been to the town before and we were all pleasantly surprised. The downtown is very cute and filled with tempting restaurants and bars. We had a hard time narrowing down our lunch choice the following day.

We checked into our hotel and headed out to the first of two wineries we visited. Concannon was a beautiful winery. It appeared to be a relatively new building with office space and shops as well. Our wine guy served several delicious wines. After I had instagramed a photo of our wine, a twitter/dailymile runner friend suggested we head to Fenestra. They had great wine but the woman serving was a little rude (we were also served by a very friendly man that made us enjoy our visit more). Both wineries had delicious but I was good and only bought one bottle. During our second wine tasting we met up with Leslie’s friend of a friend. It happened to be her birthday so we joined her from sushi, one of my favorite pre race meals (carbs: check, protein: check, delicious: check!). After dinner, we headed back to our hotel to rest up for the race the following morning.

The Grape Stomp half marathon, 10k, and 5k is held in a large park in the outlying area of Livermore. The half marathon course follows a bike trail through local neighborhoods then turned around, paralleled the start line and covered rolling hills through the vineyards. The 10k (which Leslie ran) was an out and back on the bike path. We arrived at the start with a little bit of time to spare but faced long bathroom lines. I was worried I would miss my start time. But a series of unforeseeable events pushed back the start time by about 30 minutes. I made some friends with a couple women at the start line and before  I knew it, we were off.

My game plan had been to take the first 3 miles easy: use them as a warm up and avoid starting too fast. Then I planned to run the final 10 miles at marathon pace (approximately 8 minute miles). Uh, yeah. I did not do that! I started out with 3 fast miles (7:30ish range). I finally slowed myself down at mile five (8:10) but never really stayed with my plan. I felt strong and wanted to race. I did try to pull back a few times, and if I hadn’t I would have PR’ed. At approximately mile 3 or so, I saw Leslie running her 10k, holding first place for women runners. It was great seeing her and knowing she was going to place well. I continued along my course easily passing runners as I neared the halfway mark, the second turn around, and even in the last few miles. I finished at 1:43:43, 40 seconds slower than my PR.

Leslie finished her 10k as first overall woman (no surprise there!). She won a nice wine glass and bottle of wine. I ended up coming in 16th overall woman and 10th in my age group. Elise, who was overcoming an injury, had volunteered and helped runners have a smooth race experience. It was a great race weekend and a nice checkpoint to see where I was in my CIM (California International Marathon) training.

Nike Women’s (Half) Marathon – Third Times the Charm

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This was my third year running the Nike Women’s Half Marathon. You can read about my other times running it in 2010 and 2011. Both had their pros and cons, but this year was all good!

Leslie & I before the race

A few weeks ago, my friend & fellow SCE member, Leslie, decided to bid on a raffle entry. She won and we decided we run the race together. I was using it as a training run for CIM and she just wanted to have fun. We decided to run it as a “fun run.” We ran the Presidio Cross Country Challenge a few weeks back and the hills destroyed me. Leslie and I decided to do some hill repeats in the in between weeks and thank goodness we did! (More to come on that).

Friday afternoon we headed up to pick up our race packets and we were in and out of the expo. Then Sunday, October 14, it was race day. I had my alarm set for 3:45am (yep) and I woke up pretty easily. I had an egg and a piece of toast (my new favorite pre-race meal) and headed off to pick up Leslie. We got to the city very easily, found a great parking spot, and jumped into the Hilton for some pre-race potty breaks. Then we headed to our wave and waited for the race to start.

so … many … runners!

It was cold and dark but not too bad. We started but had a very slow first mile just navigating the crowd. 25,000 runners ran the half & full this year, so lots of dodging. After that we settled into a nice pace and just had a good time. After a quick bathroom break we were through the Embarcadero, past Pier 39, and heading up the Presidio hills. I felt great on all of them. Yay for hill repeats working! We passed lots of runners going up the hills, which made us feel great. The race was flying by!

Runners conquering the hills

Feeling strong!

Soon we were in the beautiful neighborhoods outside of the Presidio and again climbing the hills. We had both forgotten the hill in mile 9, so that was a little rough but in mile 10 you get to fly downhill. Before we knew it we were zooming down miles 9 & 10 and about to head into Golden Gate Park. This year they skipped the Chocolate mile (good, I want my chocolate but it’s not fun to hold on to it while you run). And we sped into the finishing line (final mile 7:04). I pulled out my Miles for Mokie sign (it had fallen off my back around mile 9).   I held it up as we crossed the finish line. Official finishing time: 1:48:36 (unofficial removing the potty break: 1:47:41). In fact six of our miles were under 8 minutes. This was a course PR for me and knowing that I wasn’t super pushing myself, just having fun, I was stoked!

Miles for Mokie sign I wore on my back.
It got wet from the fog & fell off, so I held it across the finish line…

Holding Mokie’s sign

Leslie & I at the finish

 

Leslie and I made our way through the finishers area, picking up our Tiffany’s necklace and a lot of other goodies (including a full bottle of Neutrogena sunscreen and a yoga mat). We jumped on a shuttle (ok we shivered in line waiting but no biggie) and headed back to Union Square. After a quick change of clothes we were off. Getting in & out of the city was super easy this year!

so many goodies!

After we picked up some breakfast and came home, I headed out for 7 more miles to complete the 20 miles on my training plan for today. Surprisingly, I also felt really good during that run, averaging just over a 8:30 mile.

Heading out for my 2nd run

So in conclusion, this was my favorite NWM experience yet. And this is definitely a race to run with friends! So much fun!! Oh, NWM you have won me back over :)

 

The SF (2nd Half) Marathon

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Another race recap on the blog is happening now! This past weekend I ran in The SF Marathon for the second year in a row. Last year I ran the first half of the marathon (which I didn’t blog about, but I’m guessing that’s because I had such a rough race, hello dehydration) and this year I completed the marathon course by running the second half. Yep, you can run the first or the second half of the course, pretty cool huh? The first half begins at the Embarcadero, goes along the coast, across the Golden Gate Bridge, up and over some gnarly hills, and ends in Golden Gate Park. The second half begins in Golden Gate Park (surprise!), winds through the park, heads down Haight, and winds back up along the coast by AT&T Park and ends in the Embarcadero.

The weekend started early when I woke up at 5:30am to drive up to South San Francisco and catch a BART to take into the city (avoiding parking in SF = happy Meg). Why so early? Uh, so I could run with running legend Bart Yasso in his shake out run. There was about 10 or so people who showed up, including SF Ambassador and my friend Alisyn. The pace was slow, so we kept a little ahead of the group. After we headed to the Lululemon run, but that was a little more overwhelming. So my new running friend, Renee, and I took up to run to the expo (a nice 5 1/2 miles total for both runs).

Bart & Me after the shake out run

At the expo, I picked up my bib and made an easy change from Wave 3 to Wave 2, as well as got a sticker confirming my participation on the Half-it-All Challenge (more on that later). Then I headed over to the Tech Center where I met Monika for the first time in person. Monika is also a SF Ambassador and makes tutus for GlamRunner. Several people that I know from various online running communities were wearing a tutu in the race, so guess what. I decided to do so too. I picked up my tutu and high tailed it out of the expo to avoid buying any tempting (yet expensive) running gear or registering for yet another race. The rest of the day was filled with shopping and errands and picking up Kevin’s uncle from the airport.

Race Preparations

The next morning I was up before 5:30am so that we could head out with plenty of time to spare.  My friend Pat graciously volunteered to drive me up and drop me off at the start line. We made amazing time and got to the start line with plenty of time to spare. After biding my time in the car, I headed out to start line and Pat took off to meet his buddy who lives on Haight. I got the start line and found several warm heating lamps to keep us runners warm on the cool, drizzly, foggy morning. (What a great idea! Kudos to that genius!) I chatted with some other runners who had traveled from San Diego and Colorado. And soon enough it was time to run.

I really wanted to set a new PR even though my current one is just two months old. A part of me feared that 1:45:44 time was a fluke and I needed to at least run it again to prove that it was real. I also wanted to run a steady race, as my last one was very fast in the first half but I struggled in the second half. I knew that if I wanted to get 1:40 I needed to maintain a 7:38 per mile pace. I tried to keep around that but ended up averaging a 7:48 pace. But I kept my pace very consistent, my fast mile 7:28 and my slowest at 8:11 (1st and 3rd mile respectively). But most of my miles were really in that 7:40-7:50 range. I ran strong the entire race and felt really good (such a difference from last year!). And I felt strong on the hills as well (of which there were a few more than I expected). In the first half I had kept near a woman running a similar pace (she kept me going in the park) but I moved ahead of her after the 6 mile marker. Oh and I saw Monika in her tutu briefly in the Park.

Running through Golden Gate Park (my hair was driving me nuts!)

After the leaving the park, we headed down Haight. I loved running through the crazy famous neighborhood. I saw a sign that said “That “clif bar” you just ate was really a special brownie, welcome to the haight!” (or something like that). And we got some nice downhills through this section. Then I was running in areas of SF that I don’t know well and we had less crowd support, expect for the Lululemon crew you cheered us on. Around mile 10 or 11 I had a little side cramp, but I focused on my breathing and pushed through.

We came up to AT&T Park and I knew there was only about a mile left. So I gave it my all. It wasn’t my fastest mile, but still a strong finish. And I easily had negative splits in this race, woohoo!  I had taken my head phones out around mile 11 just because I like to hear the crowd and runners toward the end. As I reached the finish, I heard Pat yell my name. I couldn’t give my normal yell back but I really appreciated the cheer! I thought I would finish in the 1:42 range, but I just missed it and crossed the finish line at 1:43:03 (95th woman overall and 28th in my age group). This race granted me both the confidence that I can run for 13 miles under an 8 minute pace and a shiny new PR (by almost 3 minutes!).

Coming up to the finish line in full tutu regalia!

After I finished, I received some nice hardware. The SF Marathon started a new challenge last year where if you run both half marathons in consecutive years, you receive a special “Half-It-All” medal. It’s a pretty awesome medal and spins to show both the Golden Gate Bridge and the infamous Haight/Ashbury cross street. Then Pat, his friend Sean, and I headed from some post-race breakfast bagels and coffee.

Post Race Bling

 

I love the SF Marathon (and would love to run the full… 2013 maybe?). The race is very runner friendly with clearly divided waves, great organization, lots of water/electrolyte/calorie stations, and good volunteers. I love that we get to run so many different parts of the city. They also have this cool SF Ambassador program (just in case you didn’t click on the earlier link you can learn about the program here). I’d love to one day also be one (shameless begging happening here!). But seriously, this was such a great race experience and I highly recommend participating in one of their events.

Big Sur Half Marathon – My New Favorite Race!

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Last weekend I ran my last half marathon of the year and my 11th half marathon overall. It was my favorite race, ever! Why? Because it’s a beautiful course and you just can’t top a Big Sur running event, they put on the best races around (see my recap on their marathon earlier this year).

Cold pre race :)

I had headed out to the expo on Friday (I love when I can go early) and had Saturday to relax before the race day. I ended up running 3.1 miles with Kevin to prep for our 5k on Thanksgiving but it was actually nice. Since the distance was short it didn’t bother my legs and instead seemed to prep them for the race day. I had been reading for the days leading up to the race that it would be a cold, rainy morning. So, I laid out warm clothes and the running cap I bought at the expo. I had my usual pesto pasta pre-race dinner and got to sleep.

4:30am rolled around way too quickly, as it usually does. I got up and decided to wear a running skirt and bring pants just in case (so glad I went with that decision instead of wearing pants). It was not raining, although it sprinkled a bit on the way to Monterey. I went back and forth about wearing the hat, which I had got to keep the rain out of my face. I decided to wear it anyway, just in case it started to rain. But nope, no rain! At least not during the race. It turned out to be a beautiful morning, cold but good for running. The race takes you through the city of Monterey, Cannery Row, Pacific Grove, and along the Monterey Bay. It is a spectacular view!! I loved every minute of it.

I planned for this to be the race that I broke back through 2 hours. The last few races I have run have been slow because of a variety of reasons (dehydration, sickness, not enough training due to my crazy schedule). But I thought I could keep around a 9 minute pace and get back under 2 hours. And I did! Well, ok officially I didn’t but at 13.1 miles by my fancy Nike+ watch (thanks Kevin!) I was at 1:59. I had a little potty break at the turnaround and stopped my watch to account for that. According to my watch I crossed the finish line at 2:01 (at 13.4 miles) and my official time was 2:04. Still a significant improvement from my last race. And I kept to my pace pretty faithfully (except mile 2 and mile 12). Here are my splits:

1 mile – 8:42
2 mile – 7:29
3 mile – 8:52
4 mile – 9:10
5 mile – 9:26
6 mile – 9:03
7 mile – 9:02
8 mile – 9:32
9 mile – 9:30
10 mile – 9:23
11 mile – 9:23
12 mile – 9:34
13 mile – 9:19

I love this race. It will be my first priority of races to do in fall 2012. And I can’t wait to do it again! Thanks Big Sur for another great experience!!