Pacific Crest Half Marathon

June 28th, 2008

I survived the Pacfic Crest Half Marathon. Here are the Results. I finished in 1:36:21. I ran at around 7:15 pace until around mile 10 where I hit the wall ... hard :). I faded to about 8:12 for the last mile. Picture: Use bib number 4716.

Warning: Complaining Follows
Why I hit the wall:

• I did not fuel and hydrate well for the conditions
• It was 75+ degrees and rising by the 10 mile mark
• Sunriver has 4200 feet of elevation
• The course is fairly hilly.
• When I and 500+ others were told it was time to walk to the start line we were surprised to find 500+ more people already there and the race organizer was counting down 10,9,8...
  I had to weave my way through 450 people to get to others running the same pace.
• Or it could be I was overly ambitious

This was the first competitive half marathon I have ever done. The only other attempt was when I was 17 and I thought I could just show up on race day and run it. Suffice it to say I walked half of that race.

So, for my first Half Marathon I got 37th place out of 1100+ people. I feel pretty good about that. Of course, all of this is in preparation for the Portland Marathon. I was going to use this race as a guide for pacing the marathon. However, due to the factors complained about above I don't think it is accurate. So the next step is the Lacamas Lake Half Marathon. The conditions should be a bit better there. If I tank again, then I know I need to reset my goals.

Here is the gps map:

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David