"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
~ Winston Churchill
This past Sunday I ran the New Boston half marathon up in NH. It was my third in-person race of the year and easily the one I was most excited about. As of race day, I was five weeks post-marathon and felt fully recovered. I was also itching to compete again and chomping at the bit to run fast. I'd run well at the Cheap Marathon but, if I'm being honest, I felt I had more in me so I wanted to see if I could bring that out. My goal for race day was to send it. That's it. I wanted to give it everything I had, to take a risk and get a little gritty. I knew I was lining up with a fast field of women ahead of time which totally fueled my fire. But then, the only person I was racing was myself. And I was ready to fight. My older daughter and I were home solo Saturday night before the race so we had a mellow evening together and I went to bed....wait for it....early. I know. Crazy. I laid out all my gear and...yada, yada...same routine, different day. I'm wondering if these posts might be getting a little too predictable by now. Whatever.
The drive to New Boston was about an hour so I set my alarm for 5:00am which sounds early. I mean, it is early. But, for some reason, for the past 12 days (yes, I've been counting) I have woken up on my own at 4:30 and, despite a solid effort every single morning, have not been able to fall back asleep. Getting older is super fun. Needless to say, I had no reason to set my alarm as I was up at 3:45 and out of bed by 4:20 on race day.
Hello coffee, my old friend. I put some tunes on and sat and drank in the dark, slowly waking up as the sun came up outside. It was very peaceful. Ridiculously early, but peaceful. I left the house a little after five and had an easy trip out to New Boston. Parking for the race was at the Hillsboro County fairgrounds and then it was about a half mile, uphill trek to the start. I could have paid for VIP parking and avoided this walk to and from my car pre-race but what would have been the fun in that? Note the hill that winds up to the left of the cones. I did have a little panic moment that this would be our finish which would undoubtedly be ugly. I debated whether to ask about it and ultimately decided it would be better not to know.
I picked up my number and shirt and said a quick hello to the fabulous Ali Feller, of the podcast 'Ali On The Run', who I met back at my first Millennium race and have now seen at all three events as she usually works at them as an announcer. Always nice to see a smiling face early in the morning when the nerves are in high gear. And she is always smiling. Bless her. I ran back to my car and through the fairgrounds a bit for a warmup. By the time I was done it was notably warm out; hovering around 60 with full sun. It felt good at the moment but I had a feeling it was going to get hot fast and could potentially become an issue. Not that there was anything I could do about it but worry. Which I did. Around 7:20 I made my way over to the start and lined up next to cone #27. As we've done at our past two races, we would be taking off in a staggered start and leaving in 10 second intervals. Which obviously makes sense given the Covid situation but also messes with the head a little bit as the solo takeoff is definitely a bit odd. My friend and former teammate Kelli, tapped me on the shoulder just as we were about to launch. She was in town from CA running her first race since having her daughter. We hugged and wished each other good luck. She's a big smiler, too and her positive, bubbly presence gave me a much needed jolt of energy. Finally a little after 7:30, we were off.
THE RACE:
My A goal for this race was to run a personal best. My B goal was to run smart and hard. My C goal was to not die. Seriously, though, I truly believed I had a good time in me and based on my workouts leading up to the start I was ready to give it a shot. My previous half PR was 1:25:37 so I was hoping to best this by running between 6:25 and 6:30 pace for the majority of the race. Based on the course profile, I knew the first half of the race would be faster than the second so I decided to use what is typically not the smartest strategy and bank some faster miles in the beginning. My first mile was a 6:24 so pretty close to right on target. There were some gentle rollers over the next few miles and my pace fell back to 6:31 and 6:32 despite my effort to hold steady. Once I got to mile four I was in a really solid groove. These miles flew by, 6:25, 6:24, 6:22, 6:26. I ran most of this stretch with Paul Crochiere, who I met after the race. Not the guy I'm with in the photo below. Not sure who that is.
Turns out Paul is a 60 something year old phenom who qualified for worlds in London this fall. Very impressive. At mile 9 we slogged uphill but I got back on track for mile 10. At that point, all I needed to do was hang on and hold steady and I'd be coming in right where I wanted. I was psyched. But, I was also really tired. I could feel those faster miles in my breathing. It was hot. And I was by myself at this point. Which is a very dangerous combo. Maybe if I close my eyes it will be better. Maybe not.
I kept telling myself to dig in and was doing everything I could to stay focused. Our final push was uphill which was rough. I managed to find one more gear and threw myself across the finish with every once of energy that I had left. According to my watch, my time was 1:25:17.
But that was for a total distance of 13.2 miles so I knew that my official time would be a little different. Regardless, I was pumped. Clearly. As you can see by my literal fist pump. I'd run my brains out and was pretty sure I'd gotten that PR, if only just a small one.
I wandered around post-race catching up with run friends from near and far. Some of them, like Nora and Heather, I see often but others, like Kelli, I haven't seen in years and since all of us were vaccinated we got to actually hug it out and spend some quality time together. That was awesome. I didn't know my actual time for a while and was riding on the high of knowing I'd left it all out there and probably achieved my A goal. Oh wait, I could check Strava. According to that data, I'd set a half marathon PR of 1:24:43 (6:28 per mile). What the what??? Could that possibly have happened? I didn't get too excited because while many of us believe Strava is the end all be all, it's really not. The actual result could and likely would be totally different and I didn't want to make any assumptions. We didn't get our finish times for a few hours because the race had gone off in multiple heats and they wanted to make sure the majority of runners were in before sharing them. As predicted, my final official time was different. Stupid Strava. Kidding. Kind of.
I won't lie and say I wasn't a little disappointed. That 1:24 had been a mean tease. Plus, I'd run the exact pace I'd wanted to. I just hadn't run the tangents well and had put a tad too much extra mileage in. Something new to work on, I suppose. Still, I was the 6th woman across the line and the first Master (40+) so I had to be happy with that. Forgive the humble brag here. I guess I'm writing it down so I force myself to say it out loud and to believe it. Be happy, Rebecca. Keep working. But be proud. At 46, I keep wondering if my window for improving is almost closed. But, after a race like this one I'm able to hold on to the hope that I do have more to give and while it might not be much, it's enough for me to stay after it. Cheers to that.
Listen to this:
Get Ready by Night Panda feat. BEGINNERS
