New Bedford Half Marathon 2009 Race Report

New Bedford is here again.... and its time to do battle with the infamous headwinds and get an idea of what I can hope to achieve at Boston. Last year, I cut a minute off my PR and was hoping for something similar. If I can cut 5 seconds off every mile -- 0-4 (6:15/mile), 5-9 (6:00/mile), 10-13.1 (6:10) -- it would be a time of 1:20 and change. After two relatively high mileage weeks, I cut back on the volume this week because I thought it was worthwhile to try to get in a solid race effort on fresh legs.

I've had three straight poor sleeping nights, so I didn't feel great this morning, and this carried on into the warm-up. I felt like I was dragging during the warm-up. Hooked up with Flash, Renee, and Jared and booked it to the start line with a couple minutes to spare. I spotted John Barrett and caught up with him shortly after the start. The first mile was pretty comfortable, but I started to feel the effort midway through the 2nd mile and let John slowly pull away. The first hill wasn't bad; I tried to maintain effort going up the hill and then coast on the downhill. Pat Stumbras and Chris George pulled up to me on the next climb and I worked together with Chris to get up the hill, although he was breathing way too hard this early in the race. I could feel my effort level getting away from me, so I pulled back just short of the top of the hill and let Chris and Pat pull away. The first 4 miles were trending towards the slow end and I was hoping to make up some time.

The neighborhood section was interesting. This is a long gradual downhill section and I'm used to picking up a lot of time from mile 4-8. However, I just couldn't find a good comfort level here. I was trying to keep Pat in striking distance while Chris was slowly pulling away, but I was working much harder than I wanted to. I took a gel at around mile 5.5. Somewhere between miles 6 & 7, the gel started kicking in and I quickly reeled in Pat. He said he went out too fast and I told him I was feeling pretty warm. A group ahead consisting of Lara and another BAA runner gave me another target to work towards, and I thought it might be a good idea to make contact with them once I hit the windy section. A tall guy in a Boston Community Running (BCR) jersey pulled up next to me, so we worked off each other to reel them in.

Out of the blue, things got inexplicably easier. Maybe the gel? I reeled off a series of sub-6 miles along Cove Road and finally caught up with Lara's group just as it was beginning to splinter. There was a moderate headwind along this stretch as I continued working with the BCR runner. Soon, I found myself breaking wind for the group and I was surprised that I was still feeling good. The notoriously slow 9th mile was coming up. I'm beginning to suspect that mile 8 is short and mile 9 is long on this course. Even the winner slowed more than 20 seconds. I was feeling great, but also dreading the wall of wind as we made a left turn. To my surprise, it was perfectly calm! I commented to another BAA runner next to me (think it was Carly) how weird it was with no headwind. I continued cruising along until mile 11, fully expecting that I was going to slow soon. At mile 10 (1:00:46 split), I began flirting with the idea of breaking 1:20! Also, both John and Chris were within sight and it seemed like I was gaining on them. So I focused on them instead of the clock and tried to make up ground.

By mile 12, I had cut the deficit on Chris to about 50m or so and right on cue, he craned his neck about 5 times and tried to spur me on. I buckled down and tried to reel him in, but it just wasn't happening. The effort of the previous 5 miles was beginning to show, so I focused on my turnover and just tried to get to the McDonalds that marked the top of the hill. By now, I was sure of a sub-1:20 and was just trying to stride out and get to the finish line. Alas, I couldn't pull even with Chris, but I didn't care because I had miraculously run a sub-1:20!

In retrospect, I have no idea how I pulled out this performance. I didn't think I was in shape to run a sub-1:20. My training has been wildly inconsistent this winter and I felt lousy during the warm-up and into the first half of the race. Yet, I ran a massive PR and was 2 minutes faster than last year. So my wild-ass-guess at my half marathon pace Friday night on the treadmill turned out to be spot on. This was such a breakthrough performance for me that my predicted race times off this half marathon are faster at all distances longer than the mile.

Results

Stats

	Distance						Total Time	Pace		Avg HR	Max HR
	1						6:01	6:02		160	169
	2						12:11	6:11		170	172
	3						18:29	6:18		172	175
	4						24:51	6:22		172	177
	5						30:51	6:01		170	172
	6						36:53	6:02		169	172
	7						42:51	5:58		169	172
	8						48:46	5:56		170	172
	9						55:02	6:16		172	174
	10						1:00:55	5:54		172	175
	11						1:06:54	5:59		172	174
	12						1:12:57	6:04		173	175
	13						1:19:08	6:11		173	176
	13.1						1:19:46	5:42		173	173