Leavenworth 1/2 Marathon Race Report

This morning found us shivering at the start line of the Leavenworth Marathon with our coach, training friends and even a small team from Starbucks including my colleagues Laura and Jason. My goal was to have fun and enjoy the scenery and try to come in under 2 hours. I had not been doing any speedwork (well, one 3 mile run with a few fartleks thrown in last week) or any focused training for this race -- and most importantly, I am on my sabbatical. The race started at 9 AM and at 8:58, I was running to the side of a building because I had to pee so badly and there was a line at all the potties.

The run started uphill and I was happily going my own pace until Shane (who mentioned that his goal was to beat me once learning my goal) caught up with me and then paced me a bit harder than I was planning to run up the hill. We had a nice chat and at the turn around, I stopped to get some water and he ran by and dropped my ass for the rest of the run.

I took a look at my split at the 3 mile point (25:13) and figured that I was feeling well and I might as well keep going strong. I then started to mark my splits (Mile 4 @ 7:51, Mile 5 @ 08:27, Mile 6 @ 8:11, Mile 7 @ 8:10) and officially ended my sabbatical about 2 thirds of the way in (Mile 8@ 8:51, Mile 9 @ 8:40). Despite not training for this race, I decided right then I wanted to see what I could do and stepped up the pace a bit for the rest of the race choosing people ahead of me to catch, pace with and then pass (Mile 10 @ 7:43, Mile 11 @ 8:01, Mile 12 @ 8:02). It hurt and my HR was usually around 180. I told myself that 180 was the new 150 and to butch up and keep going.

When I passed the last mile marker, I thought "what the hell" and decided to last mile fast mile it to see what I could do (Mile 13 @ 7:19, Mile 13.1 @ :46). I was pretty happy with my time and came in 3rd in my age group :)

By the end of the race, I decided to train hard for the Seattle Half and try to beat my PR in 2006.

13.1 Mile Leavenworth Half Marathon @ 01:47:17.8
183A

After the race, we went back to our cabin where we were staying with our friends and then hit Octoberfest for some recovery drinks :)

Our friend, who has earned the nickname MJ (for MoJo) met some new friends -- three red haired sisters and their mom and got a group picture of them with our friends who stayed with us the first night where the 5 of us covered lots of important topics and drank way too much wine...