Coming off last year's racing season which included my first ultramarathon, I wasn't 100% how I was going to structure my 2017 race season. I knew what goals were still on my proverbial bucket list, but was I going to address those goals this year? I decided that I would take a different approach after focusing on long, slow, distances last year and focus on shorter distances, at least in the first half of the year. After deciding this, I picked out the Oshkosh Half Marathon. I picked this for a few reasons, it is a cheap race, its close to home, early in the year, and my wife was already registered to run this race. After over 10 years of swearing off running, she has found a new love of running, which is awesome. It has been fun watching her progress and find a joy in a previously dreaded activity.
Training for This Race
I had the best of intentions when I originally signed up for this race. The only stipulation with my training, is that if there were ever a day where only either my wife or I could run, I had to cede the time to her. That seemed a little price to pay after the countless years of her ceding time to me for my endless hours of training. But once February and March rolled in and we got deeper and deeper into our home remodel project, my training took a serious back seat to our home. And honestly, I had no issues with it. I enjoyed the work and would have felt guilty if I would have not dedicated the time to the project and focused on running. So my training took a serious hit from mid-February to mid-March. I followed a "cookie cutter" training program from Hal Higdon. I chose his advanced 13.1 training plan. The mileage was rather conservative (from what I have grown used to) and in reality, had more off days than I was also used to. Below is the training plan I attempted to follow.
Prerace
With my wife, her friend, and my dad running the race, we all met down at the packet pick-up the day before the race. Now, the company that puts on the race (DuTriRun) also runs numerous other events, including triathlons and duathlons. I have participated in pretty much all of their events over the past 10 years and have learned that you get what you pay for. And with DuTriRun events, they are cheap, but that's what you get. The race "expo" was outside during a wet, cold, and windy weekend. There was nothing special and nothing to really do, other than pick up your race packet, which consisted of a cheap "technical" fabric t-shirt, a cheap cinch bag (which was immediately thrown into the garbage upon returning home), your race bib, and a bunch of flyers for various things. My main concern after picking up my packet was what was the morning going to look like at the race site. Most of the marathons I have attended have some form of an indoor shelter provided for participants to stay warm and out of the potential weather. That was exactly my concern, because the weather for race morning was being forecasted as pretty much terrible. It was supposed to be very windy (15-25 mph winds), rain, and cold (20-30*). I am notoriously an early arriver to races. I like getting a good parking spot and leaving plenty of time for using the bathrooms before the long lines form and leaving plenty of time for warming up. In past years, the Oshkosh Marathon offered indoor access at the Oshkosh Convention Center, but it appeared as this was no longer available to runners. So this year, we would be banished to sitting in our cars until the race start. Even knowing this, I opted to leave early and leave plenty of time for my usual prerace rituals. We left at 4:50am and picked up Sarah's friend and my father. Once at the race site, we remained in the car for a while, but had a damn good parking spot :)
Nutrition Plan
As usual, one hour prior to the race, I took Hammer Nutrition's Anti-Fatigue Caps, Tissue Rejuvenator, and Endurance Amino. As far as during the race, I opted to try a different approach from my normal half marathon plan. I opted to carry a small 12 ounce bottle with me with Hammer Nutrition's Heed in it. Normally I opt for 1-2 gels during the event, but wanted to try a simpler approach and just use a liquid based fuel.
Equipment
Miles 0-6
Once the race started, the weather wasn't as bad was what was originally forecasted. Don't get me wrong, it was still cold and windy, but it seemed the rain was going to hold off. My original goal was to try and run even splits throughout the race and average about a 6:20/mile pace. But with the wind and the lack of training, I was just going to go out and run based on feel and just adjust my pace throughout the race. I feel like I started rather conservative, but was fine with it at the time. I finished the first half of the race feeling pretty good. I tried my best to not over think my pace or race time and just run the best race I could that day and see what happens. I had a feeling though, I was off my goal pace and was on the slower end of it.
Miles 7-13.1
By about mile 8 or 9 I finally felt as though I was in a groove and running a decent pace. Granted, this was the portion of the race that the wind was predominantly at my back. At about mile 12, you made a sharp turn onto the final stretch of the race and were immediately hit with a demoralizing head wind. Simply put, it sucked ass. I felt any confidence someone may have had, would have been immediately ripped out of their grasps. I continued to push hard knowing I only had about a mile left to go. I ended up finishing in 1:26:13 with a pace of 6:35/mile and placing 11th overall and 3rd in my age group.
Post Race
As soon as I finished, I quickly stopped back at my car and put on some warmer clothes. Then I returned to the finish line to watch my wife and her friend finish their race. I was easily more excited to watch her finish than I was excited to finish my own race. She put a lot of hard work into her training and preparations for her race and she was so close to her very aggressive goal of finishing under 2 hours. After watching her finish, we hung around to wait for my dad to finish his full marathon, which was allegedly his last marathon ever.
What's on Tap
This race was originally my "A" race for the spring, but after a lot of missed workouts during our remodel project, I just accepted the race for what it was. I also registered for a couple more races, a 5k a couple weeks after the half marathon and a 10k in June. I am now focusing my training on a 10k, the Bellin Run 10k, which I first ran last year and immediately fell in love with. I honestly have no idea what to expect in the 10k in June since I have never focused my training on an event that length. I have only ever just thrown in 5k's and 10k's into my training as a training race for a longer race later in the year. So, needless to say, I am pretty excited to see what I can do in a 10k after 8 weeks of focused training.
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