Panda Bear Night Half Marathon

Panda Bear Night Half Marathon

I debated on writing a race report because I was in such a pissy mood about it, but went to my girls Feis (Irish dance contest) on Sunday and found myself listening to myself cheer my youngest daughter up for not place in her age group. I said to her “You had a lot of competition in your age group and you did a great job. You’ll get a medal at your next one.” And with that my mood brightened and here I am with my usual long winded race report... since I like writing them.

This was supposed to be a training run. I had decided a while back that I didn’t want to lose focus on Chicago by fixating on this race too much. I ran hard this week, no taper and planned to run longish again on Sunday. Thursday night was when it hit me that I wanted to race it. I started thinking if I want sub 4 in Chicago I gotta be able to do sub 2 in a half. With that I decided what the heck I was going to race this one. Besides I figured it’d be good practice. Showed up at race. I started getting reservations about doing well when I looked around and there were a lot of young people as this race was at a college. There were a lot of fast looking people too. Not sure why some people look fast to me and others don’t.

Since this was a night race they gave away headlamps as an entry. Race cost $20 with a free headlamp. Also they were giving the winner of each age group free shoes. Can’t beat that. Started out with annoying headlamp on my head. Couldn’t figure out where I wanted to put the thing without it bugging me. Right before the race am chatting with this gal. She’s older than me in the 55+ age group. She asked me what my pace was. I told her my PR was 2:03ish and she said last race she ran was 2:04ish so I figured we’d be running pretty close in pace. It was nice company. I kept with her most of the way. She was good pacing for me. It kept me from slacking off when I wanted to and a few times I wanted to move ahead of her, but just couldn’t. She’s pretty steady. We started a little fast. Kept talking about slowing down, but in my head I was still thinking sub 2 so I wanted to keep the fast pace if it wasn’t hurting and this race I actually flipped to HR to make sure I wasn’t pushing too hard. Get to around 3 miles and go to adjust annoying headlamp and one of the straps slides out of place so it won’t stay on my head. I spent a short time trying to fix it before I decided screw it I will just carry the thing. You really needed one to see on this trail. (It was a paved bike trail so real nice, but you still couldn’t see anything in the dark.) I was tired by 4 miles, but at the same time knew I had plenty in me to keep pushing along. Miles 5 and 6 weren’t too bad. Running gal got ahead of me there for a little bit there, but still within eyesight. Turn around surprised me as I thought I had further to go. Wasn’t looking at my watch or something, but nice surprise anyway. Catch up with running gal I think around 7ish and we chat about maybe making sub 2 if we could pick the pace up a little. We decided we could try to do it together which was cool. I told her since she was in the 55+ age group she stood a much better chance on the shoes and just think about those shoes and we pushed along. Mile 8 and 9 just ticking away. Mile 10 I decide to play Pacman. (Thanks for teaching me that, lol). And you know what nobody did pass me from mile 10 on. I only passed a few because there just wasn’t many people left to pass, but I passed who was left. At 3 miles left I didn’t have the energy to calculate how much time I needed to come in under 2 hours. I’m getting better at my pacing so I knew I would only be able to push so much faster for the last 3. I knew from my lap times that I wasn’t keeping fast enough pace for that likely to happen, but I don’t know was determined to finish as strong as I could. I went back to remembering this was supposed to be a training run and this wasn’t a goal race. I kept thinking about Chicago and how this would be good practice for the last 3 on Chicago and just mentally went there. Get to 2 and did rough math estimates and realized I’d have to do like 8 minute miles on the last 2 to finish sub 2. I knew that wasn’t happening and honestly didn’t think I’d even PR. Couldn’t look at my watch for the last part. Too much work holding the darn headlamp so I could see and just kept pushing hard. When I saw the clock though and realized damn, I’m gonna PR I pushed hard. Quite proud of my little legs for that last mile and especially the finish. I’m getting pretty good at strong finishes at least. Came in at 2:02:15. One and a half minute PR. I should have been happy with that and I feel real bratty whining about it, but when I looked at my time compared to everyone else I felt like a big slow poke. I was also discouraged as to how much damn work it is now to move my PRs one minute now. I got spoiled last year with the huge gains. I also was a little discouraged that I might not be able to get sub 4 in Chicago, but then I got to thinking about what I told my daughter and you know what - so what. I will definitely PR in Chicago, maybe not sub 4. Maybe it takes me one more race or maybe 2. I am making progress and as I’ve realized in life the secret to success is sticking with it. (Found that holds true with lots of things...) Have a great week all and happy running!

Laps - 9:16(170), 9:24(173), 9:17(175), 9:32(174), 9:27(176), 9:25(176), 9:50(173), 9:30(173), 9:20(174), 9:19(176), 9:27(175), 9:29(176), 9:02(177)