Jingle Bell Half Marathon Race Recap

The theme I keep arriving at when it comes to the pursuit of a big goal is that the more you let go, the more you achieve. I learned that as I trained for and raced my 8th marathon. And this weekend was another exercise in the same lesson. On Saturday I ran 1:35:59 at the Jingle Bell Half Marathon. It’s the very same time that I set my sights on two years ago at the CHaD Hero Half Marathon. I can remember that half marathon with so much clarity. I wanted to run 1:35 so bad, every thing in me believed I could and even my 5K and 10K time predicted that a 1:35 was in my reach. But I fell short.

I can remember toeing the line and ready to race myself to success. But if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last two years it’s that you cannot force success. You do the work. You follow through. You rise to the challenge. And you set yourself up for you goal, but you certainly can’t force it.

On Saturday I lined up with no expectations for my race. I had a general idea of my current level of fitness and what times were reasonable expectations in accordance that fitness. But I was also hesitant. I hadn’t raced a half marathon since 2013 and one of those was my disappointing finish at the CHaD Half Marathon and the next was another do-over attempt two weeks later where I ran strong for the first 8 miles and then slowly lost steam as my legs got heavier and heavier and I hit the wall with a mile to go. Two years is long enough to forget what it the pacing for 13.1 should “feel” like.

I decided to simply wear my Timex stopwatch and run “blind” with only feedback on the mile splits. I wanted to run by “feel” and I wanted that “feel” to be slightly harder than an easy run, but not as hard as 10K effort. My thought was to run the first 8 easy: make it feel like a long run and then run hard from 5 miles. That was the plan. Run and see. Run and see.

I’m convinced when you run without expectation, run by feel and rely on your training you can run really well. And that’s what happened to me on Saturday. I went out. Ran by feel. Ran one mile at a time. Tried to push the last four miles, despite the hills and ended up with a four minute PR.

Here’s how the race broke down for me:

Mile 1-2: 6:29 Woah that was fast. Way too fast. That can’t be right. Sure enough the first mile marker was off and the mile two split reflected it: 7:54. Then I went through mile three and saw 7:15, the first accurate mile split and thought that it was way too fast. Can I keep this up? This is way too fast. I won’t have enough at the end. But I felt comfortable.

Mile 4: Ease back. Ease back. I kept telling myself. There were so many turns and so many little rolling hills I just focused on keeping my effort even. 7:33.

Mile 5-7: After mile four I just wanted to feel comfortable. And I decided that I was just going to let my body run the pace it wanted to run. And if I had to hang on for dear life at the end I’d hang on for dear life and if I had a push at the end I would push. Miles 5-7 were some of my smoothest and I felt like I hit a good rhythm: 7:19, 7:11. 7:19

Mile 8: As I approached the end of mile 7. I tried to decided if I would make a move or not. I was running much faster than I anticipated I would and for the most part my breathing was easy, except for on the hills. Then I would recover and keep going. We had a longer, gradual hill in mile 8. I got passed and wondered if I’d have the leg strength to keep up the pace. Mile 8 was filled with doubt. I though a LOT about my half marathons in 2013: mile 8 was my choking point in both those races. Eventually I shook off the doubt by thinking about times I’ve been strong. Embrace the hill!

Mile 9-11: After I shook off mile 8 there was a slight break in the hills and I decided to let my pace roll a bit and pick it up. I ran 7:22, 7:05 and 7:24 through mile 11. When I looked down at my watch at mile 11 and saw a total time of 1:20 I knew I was on track for the time I thought I was capable of reaching on a good day. But I also knew that the rest of the course was uphill.

Mile 12-13.1: Mile 11- 12 was a long, gradual climb and as we climbed I just tried to focus on my arms and not losing too much steam. In the final mile the course flattened a little bit before climbing up the drive we had run down in the first mile. There was bit of a headwind, not a lot but just enough coupled with the uphill climb to make the last half mile tough. I pushed up the hill and turned into the parking lot for the finish and saw 1:35:xx on the clock. I kicked as hard as I could to get in under 1:36 and just squeaked by with a time of 1:35:59 (my watch read 1:36 flat).

Looking back at the race I feel please. It was a good effort and it feels good to accomplish a time that I tried so hard to achieve two years ago. But as I look ahead this is just a stepping stone race. So I’ll keep doing the work and embracing the hill and see what happens!