Hartford Half 2014

Last weekend, I ran the Hartford Half Marathon for the third time.  Over the last six months, I have completely changed my approach to training.  I started eating "clean" to the best of my abilities - no white sugar, no white flour, no processed foods.  I started lifting more rigorously - I had Lee design a program for me that had me lifting legs twice a week and spending a solid hour on my upper body each week as well.  And in preparation for the race, I followed a difficult training program that required speed work on the track and hard runs during the week, in addition to long weekend training runs.  Going into the race, I was stronger, faster and 15 pounds lighter, but whether I could put it all together for a race was still an unknown.  The morning of the race was less than ideal for me - 50 degrees, 89% humidity and pouring rain.  Add to that another factor - my sister was also running the race.  We have not raced together since the Philadelphia Marathon in 2011 and I was very wishy washy about whether I even wanted to run with her; she is much faster than me and I'm a bit of a head case on race days, so I didn't know if running with her would be good or disastrous.  As it turned out, we did not run together - although we ran near each other the entire time.  At times, we were side by side; other times, she was as far at 25 yards ahead of me or I was ahead of her and she almost lost me.  By mile 11, however, we settled into a nice rhythm and ran side by the side for the remainder of the race.  Despite the conditions - or perhaps because of them - it ended up being almost a perfect race for me.  I beat my prior best time by just short of five minutes, running a 1:50:31.  I placed 1,155 out of 5,912 half marathoners (top 20%); 381 out of 3,487 females (top 10%); and 61 out of 527 in my age group (top 11%).  I didn't have a single mile split above 8:30; mile 2 was actually at a sub-8 mile pace; and the majority of the splits were between 8:10 and 8:20.  I am immensely grateful to my sister who ran the entire race with me, without pressuring me to run faster - she sacrificed her own race (although still finished 12th in her age group!) to make sure that I did my best.  While a 1:50:31 is a great day for me, it's almost 15 minutes slower than her best half marathon - and something for me to shoot for as I head into my 40's, which are supposedly the fastest years for women.

DOT signs, the week leading up to the race. 

In the car, wearing garbage bags of course, before the race.  It was pouring and just barely light, although this was taken close to 7:30 a.m. 

I think that this is just after mile 9. 

Optical illusion - I'm in front of Kathleen, but she crossed the starting line before more so actually placed ahead of me.  But we ran the exact same time.

Post race selfie - also in the car, as it was still pouring. 

Hartford makes a great finishers medal. 

Kathleen on her way to Boston to see our niece Meghan swim, me on the way to a Halloween party with Elizabeth.  We clean up well.