prairie fire spring half marathon recap

on sunday i ran in my second prairie fire marathon series race. and i LOVED IT!

insert typical finish photo here

last fall, i had some serious IT band issues going on and while i finished in a decent time, i knew it wasn't my best performance. since that was my first half, i knew that this time around i was going to do much better.

and i did! i PRed!

going into the race, i had three goals:

my "a" goal was to beat 1:55. i had been training the last month or so at about a 9-9:30 minute/mile pace and was thinking that 1:55 was a good "reach for the stars" goal.

my "b" goal was to break the 2 hour threshold. i knew this was a distinct possibility since i ran a 10 miles long run about a month ago at 9 minute miles.

but, since i had doubts, i had a "c" goal of just PRing. my time last year was 2:07 and some change.

the day started off rainy and cold. we left the house in plenty of time to get there an hour before the race. i wanted to have time to walk to the start, hit the restrooms up and check my gear before i was supposed to meet my training group for a photo.

the husband dropped me off, i walked a block to the start...

and pretty much no one was there.

weird.

after i hit up the bathrooms, more people started parking and walking up and pretty soon it was 7 and time for our group photo.

firefly training groups (both east and west)

in order to meet my "b" goal, i decided to run with the 2 hour pace group. the two guys that paced us (one was the city manager and the other was a fireman for the city of wichita) were so great to run with! they made jokes, talked to us and cheered us on the entire time. i LOVED having a pace group to run with. i didn't know anyone else running the same pace as me, but running with that group made me feel like i was running with my training group or a group of friends.

miles 1-5 felt awesome. 9:30, 8:59, 9:03, 8:55, 8:55. i stuck with or slightly ahead of the pace group the entire time. the only reason i got ahead of the pace group was because they slowed way down at each aid station and i felt like running through.

i saw the husband at about mile 2. he was in the car (since it was still raining) and he somehow got parked INSIDE the course. poor guy had to wait until the last runner went through before they would let him pull out of the spot. whoops.

6-7 i kept up with pace group as we ran around a golf course and towards the botanical gardens. 8:46, 9:01. holy crap, mile 6 felt fast. i could hear the two pacers talking about slowing down, since we were going a bit fast but after they consulted some of the runners around us they decided to just keep at the faster pace. in the words of carlos, "well, it's a 2 hour pace group so you KNOW you're gonna run at LEAST a 2 hour half marathon!" see? they were awesome.

this is one of my better photos, unfortunately.

halfway point i was starting to get a bit winded, mile 6 really took it out of me and i knew we were headed towards the "hilly" portion of the race. yes, hills in kansas. we do have those here, you know. we hit the point at 59:27. the funny thing was bob, one of the pacers was a bit behind after waiting for some water at an aid station and when he caught up, he asked carlos, the other pacer if he knew what the half time was. he didn't. no one else piped up, so i said, "my phone said 59:27!" and carlos said, "what she said!"

i stayed with pace group until mile 9. mile 8 was my fastest at 8:42 and i felt myself start to slow down after the biggest hill and mile 9 was a 9:05.

i somehow managed a smile between the 11 and 12 mile markers

gave up completely mentally for mile 10 and it was my slowest of the entire race. 9:33

husband sat at the exploration place parking lot waiting for me to run by again and snapped a few photos while he waited:

see? those are kansas hills.

see that awesome building with the curved roof that hangs over the river? that's where we got married.

the only photo he grabbed of me. pink socks FTW!

mile 11 felt bad, but i heard my split and for the first time thought i might actually be able to beat 2 hours. it ended up a pretty nice 8:48.

i thought i picked it up for mile 12, but it was along the river path and it was basically a bunch of rolling hils. however, i really picked it up for the last mile. i kept worrying i wasn't going to hit the 2 hour mark so i just put it all out on the line and full out sprinted the last quarter of a mile or so. 8:53 was my last mile and BOOM!

a 1:58:24 half marathon.

whew.

then i went and inhaled all this:

worth. every. mile.

and now...marathon training. :)