When: June 6th, 7:30am
Course: 13.1 Miles with over 2000 feet drop in elevation
Time: 1:45:12
Weather: VERY chilly and windy at the start, warm and sunny at the finish
My legs are still grumbling at me after 13.1 miles of fast downhill running, but it's all worth it: I got my PR, and avoided any serious injury! :)
Some quick hits on Fontana for you:
Brrrrrrr so cold and windy at the start line up in the misty hills of the San Bernadino National Forest... Pretty, but get this thing going already!
Friendly folks at the start line, including an older man in front of us with a "100 Marathon Club" shirt on. We overhear that his first marathon was in 1978, and now that he's run 100 marathons he's working on 100 1/2 marathons. Wow!
We warm up fast with a nice quick pace going downhill the first half, I figure around 7:30 per mile, and no side cramping!
...At the beginning of a race or long run I tend to get this song in my head to keep my breathing even (Charlotte Martin's "The Dance" -- bum-buh-duh-bum, bum-bum-bum, bum-buh-duh-bum, bum-bum-bum...). But around mile 6 it slips out of my ears and all I have is breathing -- in-hale, ex-hale, in-hale, ex-hale...
Mile 7, our pace eases up a little due to a bathroom break and shortly after that an unfortunate strained hamstring for Chad. But together we push on towards the finish line, slower than we want to due to the injury, but still crossing the line together at 1:45:12 - PR for both of us, 8:02 pace per mile average, and pretty darn close to my goal time! And not only that, I placed 8th of 54 in my age division!
Both of us are certain we could have done better time wise had it not been for Chad's hamstring pull, but in the words of Sam Elliott, "Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes...well, he eats you." In the end we both PR'd, and now we have a great benchmark to shoot for next time we do a half.
Which probably won't be for a while, since now we are focusing on the Long Beach FULL Marathon! Here come those 20 mile long Saturday runs... :)
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