Baystate Half-Marathon 2:05

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Oct 222012
 

Gorgeous day for a race with wonderful crowds and mostly nice course. I do wish they had mile markers every mile as I got confused several times. I forgot to start my watch so I was at the mercy of course markings. Now, this may be considered flat by some people but it’s not smutty nose flat. God that one bridge in particular felt a little masochistic the second time around.

I started the day with intestinal distress and light nausea and almost didn’t get in the car to go. Sitting my car before the race my HR was up to 72, up about 12. During the race my HR remained high and I started to get what I call excessive heart rate nausea followed by the predictable chills. Basically I was headed into stupidville over-reaching territory. I massively pulled my pace back from 9:00 to 11:00 for the last 3 miles and walked the last water stops and then walked 2 times in the last mile. Ended up averaging 9:30 for the race.

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2012 Smuttynose Rockfest Half Marathon 2:02

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Sep 302012
 

Finished in 2:02, which is a personal best for me, 10 minutes faster than my previous best of 2:12:43 at Twin Lights Half in 2011. Still waiting for the official times to be posted but this should be within seconds of their number. This is the first race since my injury a year ago where I felt like a runner again. I guess the diagnoses of activity induced asthma was correct because using my new inhaler totally crushed the breathing problems I had 2 weeks ago at the Allstate Half Mary, even though the temperature and dew point were similar.

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Allstate Half Marathon for Autism

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Sep 162012
 

Perfect day for a race. Cool, sunny and with gorgeous views. I had a great long run last weekend and a great taper. Too bad this race turned into a total train wreck for me. Yes I finished (whoohoo) my first half marathon since I ruptured my Achilles tendon last year, so I need to hang on to that.

Course Map

But I really struggled through most of the race. The interesting thing is that my legs and body were strong the entire race, but after mile 4-5 or so I started having trouble catching my breath. By the end I could not even take a full deep breath without pain and that continued for over an hour after the race was over. Did I go out too fast in the beginning with cooler air? I just can’t explain it. Oh well, I have another half marathon in 2 weeks, so I better figure out what went wrong!

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Chelsea Chase 5K

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Apr 282012
 

My first official race since my injury.  I ran to support a friend who was running her first race ever.  She claimed she could only run 11 minute miles so I thought this would be a “safe” race for me.  She then proceeded to go all crazy on me.  Some portions we were at 8:30 pace and I was Okaaaaayyyy  let’s slow it down.   Ankle is a little sore now, but it was great fun overall.  And a great cause.  This course has some challenging hills but finishes on a nice half mile flat straightaway.

It benefits the Jordan Boys & Girls Club and the Chelsea Police Relief Association and the police all ran as a group.  It was really cool to see them run in formation and you could hear them chanting in unison no matter where you were on the course.  It looks to me that they ran as slow as their slowest runner as a way to show solidarity, and it worked.

Official bib time on this was 29:51, which is a 9:37 pace.   I really held my friend back and I think I asked her to slow down half a dozen times.  She later went on to run her first 10K with a great time and I think we may be looking at a new person hooked on running!