Distance: 13.1 mi
Finishing Time: 1:24:11
Place: 64th/ 2,000+ (!?!?)
It’s the night before my Napa Road Half Marathon race, and I’m lowering myself into a hot spring that advertises itself as “110-115 degrees”. As long as I don’t move it’s tolerable and knowing there is a cold pool only a minute walk away, makes me stay in longer. The weather is rainy and cold the night before the race, up in Middletown, right outside of Napa Valley.
After the hot springs, my buddy Kevin and I go to grab dinner and crash in our respective cars. The weather forecast had said possible snow at Harbin Hot Springs, despite only being at an elevation of 1600ft. I regret that I only brought two blankets and not my sleeping bag, as the prospect of snow makes me question the convenience of car camping. I’m just warm enough that night to make sleeping tolerable, waking up a few times in the middle of the night to further bundle myself, but seeing no snow as I look outside the window of my grey Tacoma.
It’s an ungodly hour of 5am, cold, dark, and wet, and the morning of the race. Within 5 minutes of waking, I’m eating oatmeal that tastes like cement and knocking on Kevin’s car door so we can drive to the start line. Windy roads take us into the town of Calistoga where I drop off my car and hop into Kevin’s, to make it to the 7am start line.
On our way to the start line, Kevin makes a left turn only to find that the road is closed due to the race. “Getting you to the start line on time is going to be close,” he says, looking at the car clock which reads 6:28am with a 7am start time. We are still a good 5 miles away from which is problematic because everything is congested as other cars try to get as close as possible to drop-off runners.
The clock now reads 6:40am, only 20 minutes away from the start of the race, and I’m 1.4 miles away from the start line. “Well,” I say, unbuckling my seat belt. “I’m getting out here and using the run to the start.” Kev wishes me good luck, takes another look at the clock and tells me to warm up fast. Immediately upon exiting the car, I’m running high 7 minute miles to make it to the start line.
“60 seconds until starting”, an announcer calls as I just arrive to the back of the mob of people running the half marathon. I glance around me and see a sign that says 15 min/mi pace. I need to move way up to get to the proper starting position and not stuck behind a mob of people. “30 seconds until starting,” and I see I’m at the 8 min/mi pace marker. In those last 30 seconds, I finally get to about where I want to be which is around 6:30 min/mi pace.
The race is off and runners around me look ahead stoically, peeling off at 6:15 min/mi pace. I feel fine at this pace except I notice a slight burn in my legs. I try to ignore it, but the burn sticks around for the first mile, and I get hit with a slew of negative thoughts. If this is how you feel after the first mile, it’s only going to get worse. That warm-up sucked, you’re not ready for this race. I let the thoughts bounce off me and just focus on keep moving forward at this pace. Sure enough, by mile two my legs feel fine, and I settle into a pace that feels like I’m working but not breaking the bank.
I quickly approach mile 5 of the half marathon where Kevin is waiting to hand me a bottle that has water mixed with 50g of carb mix. As I approach, I hear him scream “EVERYONE IN FRONT OF YOU IS CRACKING!!!!! YOU CAN CATCH THEM!!!!!!!”” The image of the 50 runners or so ahead of me all slowing down from going out too fast makes me smile as I grab my bottle from Kev, barely breaking stride.
I have been telling myself just get to mile 10, because from there it’s just a 5k finish which is nothing. Miles 8-10 are long but I’m in a pack of 5 other runners and we are all locked in at the same pace. Road racing is turning out to be a bit more of a serious game than trail running, as there hasn’t been much conversation around me. Most of the sound around me is ragged breathing and I make guesses to myself on who can maintain the pace, and who is going to fall off.
Because I have primed myself to get to the 10 mile mark, when I hit it I get a wave of adrenaline, and drop the group of 6 by surging ahead. I feel utterly amazing for a solid 10 minutes, and then the feeling starts to fade and the legs are beginning to feel heavy. It’s not a crisis though, I still have enough in the tank to get to the finish at a good clip, and I muster on. There is now only half a mile left and I’m passing a few folks, feeling pretty decent all things considered. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a female runner also passing runners and our stride begins to match. We round the corner to straightaway of the finish and neither of us are backing off. The pace rapidly increases and it’s turning into a nasty sprint finish, both of us in lock stride. We both cross the finish line in what feels like an absolute dead tie, although checking results, the clock has me edging her out by a second. My data afterwards has me running the last .3 miles of that race at 5:00 flat min/mi pace.
I chat with my sprint finish friend post-race and she tells me she is using this half-marathon race as a tune-up for the Boston marathon. She asks if I have any interest in running Boston one day. “Maybe,” I reply. “It was fun to run fast on the roads today. But I’m getting ready for a big 2024 trail season.” And that I am!
Reflection on Training Block for Napa half-marathon:
This was my first road race of the half marathon distance and I was happy with the training block leading up to it. One of the goals was to use half road marathon training to improve my foot speed and see how that translates to trails. I also had the goal of running a sub 1:25 half marathon, which would require 6:29 min/mi pace.
I had a 12 week block to build for this half starting Dec 18th, and put in the following weekly mileage: 57, 52, 58, 45, 22, 63, 60, 61, 35, 45, 29 (week of race). Two of my key workouts were:
1) 10.5 mi w/ 2 x 15 min @ 1/2 Marathon Pace which was 13 days out from the race. I hit those 15 minutes efforts at 6:32 and 6:19 pace, which averaged out is what I ran for race pace.
2) 12 mi w/ 2 x 20 min @ 1/2 Marathon Pace which was 24 days out from the race. I hit both 20 minute intervals at 7:06 min/mi pace and at that point was seriously doubting that I could hold sub 6:30 min/mi pace for the half marathon. Don’t underestimate fatigue build-up in a middle of a block and race day adrenaline.
One challenge I faced in this block was finding flat training ground for fast running that simulates race speed, as I live out in the Sierra foothills. To account for this, I made a couple of trips to my buddy Kevin’s place in Campbell to do some flat road running while he hopped on the bike and often carried my nutrition. This was super helpful, to have a buddy to motivate and a fast bike to follow.
