Race Recap

I ran the Bob Harwell Half Marathon on Sunday. I found this great little post race review thing in an article I read a bit ago, so I thought that I would try it out for this race.

• Was this the first time you raced this event? Yes
• What were the course conditions? The weather was perfect. About 2 degrees and sunny at the start. Felt a bit chilled waiting for the start but took no time at all to warm up. Terrain wise this course was tough (for me). It was hilly all the time. Not a flat section in sight. There were equal downs and ups, but the hills were pretty relentless.
• Was this an improvement or PR? I would say that this race was an improvement, but it wasn’t a PR. It was about a minute slower than my 2003 time from Ottawa (different course), but that race was poorly executed (started too fast and took many unscheduled walk breaks trying to recover). So I feel like I improved in the sense that I was able to exercise the discipline required to start slower and build to my pace.
• What was your race time and splits for each leg? Took splits at each 5K marker: 5K - 29:30 (average HR 166), 10K - 26:59 (average HR 172), 15K - 26:54 (average HR 173), 20K - 26:52 (average HR 169 - just after the 15K mark there is a crazy 1.5km-ish downhill, that would explain the lower average HR), final K - 5:43 (average HR 172)
• What were your mile splits for run? See above.
• What was your average speed and cadence on the bike (wattage)? n/a
• Heart rate data. See above.
• Race fueling and hydration. Race time was 9:00 am. At about 6:00 I had a slice of toast with PB. A cup of coffee with cream. At about 8:00 I drank a can of chocolate boost. I mixed up some Sustained Energy for the race and carried two bottle on my Amphipod fuel belt. I mixed it 16 oz of water and 300 calories (total) and divided it among the two bottles. I only drank one of the bottles and had a few sips out of the second. So that means over almost two hours I consumed about 150 calories and only drank 8oz of water. Doesn’t seem like a lot to me.
• What was your pre- and post-race weight? unknown
• Do you feel positively about the race? I do. Now that it is over I can admit that I would have liked to have come in closer to 1:55:00, but knowing what I know now about the terrain I am very pleased with the outcome. I met my goal of a negative split and managed to finally have a positive half marathon experience.

Some interesting things I noticed during the race... As you can see from my recap, my goal was to start slow and build in order to have an even or negative split. So I had to exercise quite a bit of discipline at the beginning of the race as people passed me. But at about the 5K mark I started picking people off. 5K!!!!!!!! That is only a quarter of the way into the race! So these people must have started out WAY too fast. From about 5K through to 15K I just slowly picked my way up the field of racers. After 15K the only people I was passing were the walkers who had an early start. The field was thin and I was pretty much alone most of the time, with other racers in sight ahead and behind. But I was surprised how early I started passing people.

So I'm feeling positive about my upcoming half in Ottawa.