Hollywood Half Marathon – April 7th 2012
Hollywood, CA
Run: 1:26:04 ( 6:31 per mile avg)
My goal was to try and hold a 6:30 pace the whole time and finish with a 1:25:00. However this was a bit of a guess since this was my first Half Marathon in 4 years, and my third ever.
The start was pretty sketchy. There were A LOT of people that didn't belong in the "elite" wave. Heck I didn't belong in the elite wave, but looking around I knew that all the people around me were going to slow me down. The gun went off and as we ran out of the start the chute got skinnier and skinnier. There were at least two fast runners that fell during this funneling process trying to get position and dodge the slow runners. The next 2 1/2 miles were a pretty steep downhill. I tried to keep my pace as fast as I could stand without killing my shins and knees for the rest of the race. Approx 6:00 pace. The next 8 miles were all flat, and I found two great running buddies named Hannah Briggs and Morgan Putnam who I ended up running the entire race with. With our group of three we kept our pace slightly below 6:30 for the entire flat section. We were all feeling good at this point in the race, but were really thirsty. I think they might have forgot about water stations on this part of the course. Our cheerful attitudes turned to faces of determination as we hit the Cahuenga Blvd W Climb at mile 12. It was a 1.7 mile doozy. Our group of three formed a little V formation led by Hannah and charged up the hill. I think this was the only part of the race that we actually passed people. According to Strava we climbed 384 feet with an ave grade of 4.4% and a max grade of 8.3%. At the top of the hill it leveled off for the last 1/2 mile and we all sprinted to the finish line. I was pleasantly surprised I had enough energy left in me for a 5:20 pace. I was exhausted. It felt good to finish.
Thanks to Hannah & Morgan for helping push me throughout the race. Thanks to Mix1 for the Protein drinks at the finish line. Nothing like 2 chocolate mix1's to help me recover after burning 1800 calories on a race. I was very pleased with my performance. I ended up 44th out of 6033 athletes, and finished 9th in my AG. I feel like I have come a long way from my first Half Marathon in 2006 when I finished completely exhausted in 2 hours and 16 minutes.
Click
here see this race in Strava.
Below is a breakdown of my splits.
