We ran our second Half Marathon and Five Milers by Lewisvile lake on October 27th, 2018, Lily ran half marathon and I ran 5 miles. The process was the same as previous year, we arrived at race site in dark, watching Sunrise, listening to local high school student singing national anthem and then ran our races separately. The half marathon started 15 minutes ahead of 5 milers. Due to record breaking rains in October, the half marathon trail by the lake was flooded, and it had to be changed a week before the race, 5 milers trail was changed as well.
Learning from last year's lesson, I changed my training before the race - I did not practice 5 miles the week before the race, only 5k; I also kept my pace during the race at 6 minutes per kilometer or about 9 minute 36 seconds per mile. I experienced some muscle tightness at left calf and thigh during mile 2, I kept my pace and ran through it, I was a little bit slower when running up slopes. There were two persons running just slightly ahead of me when I was about half mile away from the finish line, one old gentleman (apparently in his 60s at least) and a younger lady (age between 30 ~ 40). I was still full of energy, felt really well, I accelerated! and passed both of them before the final quarter mile! In fact I ran the fastest the last 3/4 mile (~ 1km), and achieved my personal best for 5 mile run at 49 minutes 30 seconds - met my goal of finishing within 50 minutes, but did not achieve the stretch goal of 48 minutes.
 |
| Sunrise before the race |
 |
| half marathon course included a run-around the park |
After my run, I stood near the finish line watching other runners finish, cheering them up, and checking on half marathon runners and waiting for Lily to finish. The first half marathon finisher completed his run in 1 hour 20 minutes gun time, but his real time was 1 hour 16 minutes.
Watching half marathon runners crossing finishing line was very interesting and sometime amusing. Many early finishers, within 1 hour 45 minutes, raised their arms when crossing the line, and then quickly checked their watches to find their real run time; there were two or three runners really close to each other near the finish line, they were basically racing each other like they were running 100m dash! There was this one young man finished in about 1 hour 26 minutes, as he saw the timer at the finish line shown 1'26", he was so happy, he jumped into air to celebrate before crossing the finish line. Lily finished her half marathon in 1 hour 59 minutes, 4 minute slower than last year; but she was not as exhausted as last time. In fact she looked normal right after the run.
We did have sore muscles that night and next few days. Sunday, the day after race, instead of running we walked around our beautiful community. Lily was surprised that the community and the community park was so beautiful which she ran through during her training numerous times and did not see.
We practice to run fast, but we also need to slow down from time to time to enjoy our surroundings.
 |
This runner was so happy that he finished the half marathon in good time,
he jumped into the air before crossing the finish line |
 |
| Crossing finish line |
 |
| finishing the run in 2 hour gun time, but real run time is 1 hour 59 minutes |
 |
| a photo to commemorate the event |
 |
| foliage in the neighborhood |
 |
| foliage |
 |
| the pond |
No comments:
Post a Comment