2018 surely has been an eventful year and we still have about a month and a half left! Turned 30 and traveled to Italy in March. Got engaged in July. Ran five races and set three new personal best times in half marathons between April-November. Plenty more happened of course but I'm here now to talk about the 2018 Richmond Half Marathon which was an INSANELY AWESOME run and I managed to run a nine minute personal record (PR) time!! My running has really turned a corner recently and I wanted to take some time to discuss the training, race and post race reflections on the weekend. This will be a long blog entry but I hope it'll be an interesting read to see what all went into making this race happen.
Training
In early August I started incorporating workouts back into my running routine in efforts to better my 5k time. A friend of mine who I've known online through a running/cycling community offered to help me with some coaching and workout advice and started having me follow some workout schedules. This involved generally three workouts a week, one hard, one medium and one "sweet spot" workout and one to two days of recovery in between each workout. It was a fairly aggressive schedule which required running six to seven days a week almost every week, but I wanted to try something new and since I had no plans to run a fall marathon this year I decided it would be a good opportunity to jump into this schedule and see what would happen. Running 800 meter repeats on a track was something I really hadn't been doing with any sort of regularity in three years, so it was a bit intimidating, but also fun to start doing something different for a change.
August and most of September brought obnoxiously humid and hot weather in the DC area. I had some significant struggles getting through workouts at prescribed paces largely due to constantly terrible weather conditions, even at 6AM the dew points would be well into the 70's many days of September which made for brutal training conditions. Hot weather also seems to hurt me more than the average runner, I sweat pretty easily at times, and the humidity just exacerbates everything. I could feel fitness gains as time was going on doing the workouts, but it wasn't really showing significantly in my times. I ultimately fell short of my goal of sub 20 by about 30 seconds in the Clarendon day race on Sept 22nd on what would (ironically) be yet another weirdly humid morning in late September. It still ended up being my fastest 5k in nearly five years and I felt like I was improving so even though my time in that particular race wasn't what I wanted, I knew my overall build was headed in the right direction.
After a couple days off to digest the Clarendon day 5k race I had a quick turnaround to my next race one week later, the Prince William half marathon. This is a race that I'd been signed up for since much earlier in the summer on recommendation of my friend Ron. I had heard good things about the race from him and a few other friends and originally was planning to run it as a goal race, but ended up shifting my focus to 5k training in early August and changed to the Clarendon day race as a goal race. Thus my training to date was more focused on shorter stuff like 800 meter/kilometer repeats at very precise paces to get me under 20 minutes in a 5k and not as many long hard tempo (10+ mile runs) which are typically the more beneficial runs for building endurance for things like 10k/half marathons. I was hoping that having the speed foundation going into Prince William was going to be beneficial enough though ultimately I was supposed to treat Prince William as a workout run and not a race pace run. But having fallen short the weekend before in my 5k I got to the starting line and suddenly felt a racing itch, it's so hard not to race in a race if you know what I mean...I started running with Ron and ended up running more of a race pace for the entire run and ran a new personal best time of 1:43:09 through some amazing pacing with the 1:45 pace group and then a kick in the last few kilometers. Running about 75% of the race with Ron was the first time I ever ran most of a race with someone I knew which was really fun. Running races is already great because you get to run with so many more people, but it was even better running alongside a friend so we could pace each other and both ended up running great times. The Prince William half really helped motivate me, it was such a positive experience and if I could run a time that solid without specifically doing the long harder tempo runs, what could I be capable of if I spent the next six weeks really honing in on that before Richmond?
My full build up to Richmond after Prince William half was this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kP7Ck-gxkf0kpw_HFcR9DX8NsGrvuBllmSbOn8S1ELU/edit#gid=0
I really followed this schedule very closely, I only missed a couple recovery runs here and there I don't think I missed a single workout the entire month and a half.
Almost every workout I nailed the pacing which was really encouraging and a total turn around from my August/September 5k training where I was rarely nailing all three workouts in any given week. As soon as the weather had turned in late September I really saw my paces and workout times come down. As race day approached my coach said I was ready to crush it and I felt so too. He saw my workouts were really looking solid, I ran a 5k time trial on my own in 20:12 on a track in mid-October, and crushed a couple of the harder monster tempo runs in the weeks prior, so all signs pointed to a really great race at Richmond. He said I could potentially run sub 1:35, this sounded crazy to me since I felt I had run a pretty solid race at Prince William which was my current PR (9 minutes over 1:35). I told him I'd honestly be thrilled with anything under 1:40 and would probably play it conservative a bit in the early going and see what happens...but of course the idea of 1:35 was in my mind and race day brings unexpected changes to plans, in my case these unexpected changes helped me for the better.
Race
My friend Christian, his Dad, and Ron were all running the half marathon as well. I was going to attempt to meetup with Christian before the start and run at least part of the race with him, but streets were closed all over the place as we were driving in, so Andrea and I ended up parking almost a mile away from where we were planning on meeting up so we ended up having just enough time to get to the start. As we were walking from our car to the starting area there were swarms of runners all funneling towards the starting area as well, over 20,000 runners typically take part in either the full marathon, half or the 8k. Andrea was wondering why people were walking by wearing trash bags, not a common sight to see if you have never been near the start area of a cold weather race. I told her it's to help keep them warm before the race starts, something simple that they can take off seconds before the race starts, or within the first mile and throw away once they have warmed up. Years of running has dulled me to noticing these trash bag donning runners, but this was a funny reminder of how silly it really looks. Weather was in the low 40's with light wind, near perfect conditions.
Thankfully Andrea was with me so as we got to the start area with five minutes to spare I took off my outer layer jacket and sweatpants and she kept them for me. We said our goodbyes and I'd meet up with her at the finish line.
I was supposed to start in the first wave, but because I got to the starting area just in time, the starting corrals were loaded with thousands of runners already. I made a poor decision to enter the starting corral near the back just two minutes before the first wave was scheduled to go off. I looked ahead and saw the 1:50 pace group pretty far ahead of me in a sea of runners all waiting to go, this was well behind where I wanted to start, so I started trying to push my way through people in efforts to start in a more reasonable position for my goal time. "Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me, pardon me" I must have said probably 20+ times as I weaved around bunches of people all packed into the starting area, ducking under ropes as I moved up to the faster corrals, pushing between people and forcing my way through by tapping people and squeezing through. I could tell some people were looking at me thinking "What the heck is this guy doing..." but I was intent on giving myself as best a chance to start in the proper position.
I had finally worked my way up to about the middle of the second starting corral when I heard the start command and saw people start running from the first corral. Momentary panic as I saw the 1:40 pace group running off into the distance as I kept pushing through people waiting in the second corral. Finally, I worked my way up just as they were closing off the start line again about 45 seconds after everyone in the first wave had crossed the line, I knew Christian was starting in that wave. I hesitated briefly wondering if I should just wait and start with the second wave, I knew Ron would be starting right around here but I didn't see him. I saw another guy take off running and I made the decision to hop over the rope and follow him and I was off. If anyone was going to yell at me I'd just show them my bib and that I was in fact supposed to be a wave one runner.
It was weird starting basically alone. The last of the first wave runners were a good three or four blocks ahead of me, all I could see was a wall of moving legs disappearing down the street. The announcer in the starting area was getting ready to count down the start for the second wave and made some comment as the other guy and I took off, something to the effect of "We have a couple stragglers heading out here..." it was rather comical and I suddenly felt like many people were watching me, which probably they were because the start area was packed with spectators yet here were just two random guys sprinting down the street alone.
I took off really fast, first two to three minutes of the run was spent catching up to others due to starting behind everyone. I remember glancing at my watch in the first quarter mile and seeing something like 6:45/mile pace which was way under what I wanted, but I felt SO ready to go and had people to chase. Shortly, I was able to see the 1:40 group in the distance by about a tenth of a mile. I focused on settling into a groove through the first couple miles, the first two miles the half marathon parallels the full marathon course along West Broad Street, so there were lots of people cheering us on through this section. I was holding a hat at the beginning and for the first mile and a half because I didn't know how cold and windy it was going to get, but after mile 2 I ditched it because I was warming up. Around this point I really started passing a bunch of people and caught up to the 1:40 pace group which was still a huge pack of runners. I ran with them for a short time and then pushed on ahead trying to maintain about a 7:15/mile pace or faster which was right around my "A" goal time. Somebody was talking near me around mile 2 saying this would be a PR time if he kept it up and flew through the downhill finish. I wanted to say thinking about PR's in mile two of a half marathon is generally unwise, but I just carried on.
At around mile 3.5 to 4.5 there's an out and back section of the course where you run down a side street and turn around and can see runners on the other side of the street. I was flying along at this point but saw so many people still ahead of me I was motivated to keep pushing hard. Right after I made the loop around and started running back I heard someone shout my name, I looked, but it was a massive group of runners so I couldn't see who it was but I waved anyway. (I would later find out after the race this was Ron). I powered on feeling really strong, I was keeping a close eye on my kilometer splits, in early August I switched my watch to start clicking off my kilometer split times instead miles, but still display pace per mile at all times. I find it more useful getting beeped at a bit more frequently to make sure I stay locked onto a proper pace, sometimes each mile can feel so far between. Every kilometer split up till then was between 4:24-4:32 which was right on my "A" goal pace, so far so good.
Around miles 5 through 7 you run through Bryan Park, a nice quiet park but surprisingly had some pretty long rolling hills, I had run the full marathon in Richmond before but the full marathon doesn't take you into this park so this was all totally new. I was running along and caught up to Christian in the park. Was so nice seeing another familiar face, we ran together for a couple minutes and crossed the 10k timing mat together. He told me he was struggling a bit, I told him I still felt great so I kept pushing ahead. There was a long rolling uphill out of the park which was very difficult but I maintained a pretty steady pace climbing out of the park and by then we were into the second half of the race.
Miles 8-10 I kept as steady as I could but things really started getting hard through this stretch. A couple guys started passing me and I wanted to go with them, but I could not pick it up at all through this area. I looked at my watch and noticed I was about to get through 10 miles in a personal record time and knew I was on my way to a killer finishing time if I was just able to hold it together through the last 5k. Richmond finishes with a huge downhill in the last half mile, so my target was really just get to mile 12.5 and the last half mile would be a breeze. Kept talking to myself to just keep as steady as possible, things REALLY started getting hard, mile 11 was my slowest of the race. It was getting very hard for others around me too though I could tell. A couple guys that passed me peeled off or started walking and I passed them back, but my 19th kilometer was still my slowest kilometer of the race (4:40), however the downhill was in sight right after that so relief was on the way.
Took the turn to the downhill finish and I was reminded of my marathon day in 2016, my back had massive cramping at that point so I wasn't able to take advantage of the downhill finish, today I avenged myself from the 2016 semi-failure and really flew through the downhill. My last kilometer was 4:02, by far the fastest of the race and it felt great. I flew through the finish line and saw on the clock 1:35:18, but I had forgotten that I started well after the first wave so when I looked at my watch and saw 1:34:35 I was overjoyed. Sub 1:35 accomplished a NINE minute personal best time. The culmination of one of the best training cycles of my life translated into a great race time, so sweet!
Afterwards I saw Ron who told me he was in fact the one that shouted out to me during the out and back portion of the race. He ran a personal record as well (1:38) which was awesome, we both had a killer fall racing season. I met up with Christian in the finisher area, he and his Dad had great races too. Christian said he hardly trained and still ran a 1:37, still a great time. He said he was sprinting so fast down the hill at the end he lost his hat and had to stop and turn around and get it, that finish is a blur, so fun!
Post Race Reflections
There was really no one I recall running with for any extended period of time in this race, I was either passing people fairly quickly, or people passed me fairly quickly. Usually in races I latch on with someone for extended time but for some reason this race was a bit different. I suppose based off how I started and how things played out throughout the duration of the run that's just how the chips fell in this one. Overall I feel as though I ran as best as I possibly could with how my training cycle went, I left absolutely zero time on the course. It was a dream training cycle and a dream race. A ton of credit has to go to Eric for the coaching advice and believing I was capable of sub 1:35, I'm sure I would not have run as aggressively from the get go had that number not been floated in the week prior. I trusted my training and it paid off in a big way.
I'm now taking time off for the rest of the year, I'll resume some easy running through December but I spent quite a bit of effort getting into amazing shape for this race and will fully enjoy some time off before I start preparing for my next goal race likely the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in April which feels like so far away right now but the time seems to pass faster and faster these days so I'm sure it'll be here before I know it...Thanks for reading through this monster blog post...until next time!
Training
In early August I started incorporating workouts back into my running routine in efforts to better my 5k time. A friend of mine who I've known online through a running/cycling community offered to help me with some coaching and workout advice and started having me follow some workout schedules. This involved generally three workouts a week, one hard, one medium and one "sweet spot" workout and one to two days of recovery in between each workout. It was a fairly aggressive schedule which required running six to seven days a week almost every week, but I wanted to try something new and since I had no plans to run a fall marathon this year I decided it would be a good opportunity to jump into this schedule and see what would happen. Running 800 meter repeats on a track was something I really hadn't been doing with any sort of regularity in three years, so it was a bit intimidating, but also fun to start doing something different for a change.
August and most of September brought obnoxiously humid and hot weather in the DC area. I had some significant struggles getting through workouts at prescribed paces largely due to constantly terrible weather conditions, even at 6AM the dew points would be well into the 70's many days of September which made for brutal training conditions. Hot weather also seems to hurt me more than the average runner, I sweat pretty easily at times, and the humidity just exacerbates everything. I could feel fitness gains as time was going on doing the workouts, but it wasn't really showing significantly in my times. I ultimately fell short of my goal of sub 20 by about 30 seconds in the Clarendon day race on Sept 22nd on what would (ironically) be yet another weirdly humid morning in late September. It still ended up being my fastest 5k in nearly five years and I felt like I was improving so even though my time in that particular race wasn't what I wanted, I knew my overall build was headed in the right direction.
After a couple days off to digest the Clarendon day 5k race I had a quick turnaround to my next race one week later, the Prince William half marathon. This is a race that I'd been signed up for since much earlier in the summer on recommendation of my friend Ron. I had heard good things about the race from him and a few other friends and originally was planning to run it as a goal race, but ended up shifting my focus to 5k training in early August and changed to the Clarendon day race as a goal race. Thus my training to date was more focused on shorter stuff like 800 meter/kilometer repeats at very precise paces to get me under 20 minutes in a 5k and not as many long hard tempo (10+ mile runs) which are typically the more beneficial runs for building endurance for things like 10k/half marathons. I was hoping that having the speed foundation going into Prince William was going to be beneficial enough though ultimately I was supposed to treat Prince William as a workout run and not a race pace run. But having fallen short the weekend before in my 5k I got to the starting line and suddenly felt a racing itch, it's so hard not to race in a race if you know what I mean...I started running with Ron and ended up running more of a race pace for the entire run and ran a new personal best time of 1:43:09 through some amazing pacing with the 1:45 pace group and then a kick in the last few kilometers. Running about 75% of the race with Ron was the first time I ever ran most of a race with someone I knew which was really fun. Running races is already great because you get to run with so many more people, but it was even better running alongside a friend so we could pace each other and both ended up running great times. The Prince William half really helped motivate me, it was such a positive experience and if I could run a time that solid without specifically doing the long harder tempo runs, what could I be capable of if I spent the next six weeks really honing in on that before Richmond?
My full build up to Richmond after Prince William half was this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kP7Ck-gxkf0kpw_HFcR9DX8NsGrvuBllmSbOn8S1ELU/edit#gid=0
I really followed this schedule very closely, I only missed a couple recovery runs here and there I don't think I missed a single workout the entire month and a half.
 |
| This is how my training looked like from Prince William Half until Richmond, light green are recovery/easy runs, yellow are workout runs, dark green long runs, red are races. I kept up great consistency through the whole block generally around 40 miles a week. The mileage was not insanely high compared to my marathon training last year but the workouts here at times were very good, every run had a purpose so the miles I was running were all very productive. |
Almost every workout I nailed the pacing which was really encouraging and a total turn around from my August/September 5k training where I was rarely nailing all three workouts in any given week. As soon as the weather had turned in late September I really saw my paces and workout times come down. As race day approached my coach said I was ready to crush it and I felt so too. He saw my workouts were really looking solid, I ran a 5k time trial on my own in 20:12 on a track in mid-October, and crushed a couple of the harder monster tempo runs in the weeks prior, so all signs pointed to a really great race at Richmond. He said I could potentially run sub 1:35, this sounded crazy to me since I felt I had run a pretty solid race at Prince William which was my current PR (9 minutes over 1:35). I told him I'd honestly be thrilled with anything under 1:40 and would probably play it conservative a bit in the early going and see what happens...but of course the idea of 1:35 was in my mind and race day brings unexpected changes to plans, in my case these unexpected changes helped me for the better.
Race
My friend Christian, his Dad, and Ron were all running the half marathon as well. I was going to attempt to meetup with Christian before the start and run at least part of the race with him, but streets were closed all over the place as we were driving in, so Andrea and I ended up parking almost a mile away from where we were planning on meeting up so we ended up having just enough time to get to the start. As we were walking from our car to the starting area there were swarms of runners all funneling towards the starting area as well, over 20,000 runners typically take part in either the full marathon, half or the 8k. Andrea was wondering why people were walking by wearing trash bags, not a common sight to see if you have never been near the start area of a cold weather race. I told her it's to help keep them warm before the race starts, something simple that they can take off seconds before the race starts, or within the first mile and throw away once they have warmed up. Years of running has dulled me to noticing these trash bag donning runners, but this was a funny reminder of how silly it really looks. Weather was in the low 40's with light wind, near perfect conditions.
Thankfully Andrea was with me so as we got to the start area with five minutes to spare I took off my outer layer jacket and sweatpants and she kept them for me. We said our goodbyes and I'd meet up with her at the finish line.
I was supposed to start in the first wave, but because I got to the starting area just in time, the starting corrals were loaded with thousands of runners already. I made a poor decision to enter the starting corral near the back just two minutes before the first wave was scheduled to go off. I looked ahead and saw the 1:50 pace group pretty far ahead of me in a sea of runners all waiting to go, this was well behind where I wanted to start, so I started trying to push my way through people in efforts to start in a more reasonable position for my goal time. "Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me, pardon me" I must have said probably 20+ times as I weaved around bunches of people all packed into the starting area, ducking under ropes as I moved up to the faster corrals, pushing between people and forcing my way through by tapping people and squeezing through. I could tell some people were looking at me thinking "What the heck is this guy doing..." but I was intent on giving myself as best a chance to start in the proper position.
I had finally worked my way up to about the middle of the second starting corral when I heard the start command and saw people start running from the first corral. Momentary panic as I saw the 1:40 pace group running off into the distance as I kept pushing through people waiting in the second corral. Finally, I worked my way up just as they were closing off the start line again about 45 seconds after everyone in the first wave had crossed the line, I knew Christian was starting in that wave. I hesitated briefly wondering if I should just wait and start with the second wave, I knew Ron would be starting right around here but I didn't see him. I saw another guy take off running and I made the decision to hop over the rope and follow him and I was off. If anyone was going to yell at me I'd just show them my bib and that I was in fact supposed to be a wave one runner.
 |
| Half marathoners taking off! Wave two start. |
It was weird starting basically alone. The last of the first wave runners were a good three or four blocks ahead of me, all I could see was a wall of moving legs disappearing down the street. The announcer in the starting area was getting ready to count down the start for the second wave and made some comment as the other guy and I took off, something to the effect of "We have a couple stragglers heading out here..." it was rather comical and I suddenly felt like many people were watching me, which probably they were because the start area was packed with spectators yet here were just two random guys sprinting down the street alone.
I took off really fast, first two to three minutes of the run was spent catching up to others due to starting behind everyone. I remember glancing at my watch in the first quarter mile and seeing something like 6:45/mile pace which was way under what I wanted, but I felt SO ready to go and had people to chase. Shortly, I was able to see the 1:40 group in the distance by about a tenth of a mile. I focused on settling into a groove through the first couple miles, the first two miles the half marathon parallels the full marathon course along West Broad Street, so there were lots of people cheering us on through this section. I was holding a hat at the beginning and for the first mile and a half because I didn't know how cold and windy it was going to get, but after mile 2 I ditched it because I was warming up. Around this point I really started passing a bunch of people and caught up to the 1:40 pace group which was still a huge pack of runners. I ran with them for a short time and then pushed on ahead trying to maintain about a 7:15/mile pace or faster which was right around my "A" goal time. Somebody was talking near me around mile 2 saying this would be a PR time if he kept it up and flew through the downhill finish. I wanted to say thinking about PR's in mile two of a half marathon is generally unwise, but I just carried on.
 |
| Racing in my NYC marathon race shirt |
Around miles 5 through 7 you run through Bryan Park, a nice quiet park but surprisingly had some pretty long rolling hills, I had run the full marathon in Richmond before but the full marathon doesn't take you into this park so this was all totally new. I was running along and caught up to Christian in the park. Was so nice seeing another familiar face, we ran together for a couple minutes and crossed the 10k timing mat together. He told me he was struggling a bit, I told him I still felt great so I kept pushing ahead. There was a long rolling uphill out of the park which was very difficult but I maintained a pretty steady pace climbing out of the park and by then we were into the second half of the race.
Miles 8-10 I kept as steady as I could but things really started getting hard through this stretch. A couple guys started passing me and I wanted to go with them, but I could not pick it up at all through this area. I looked at my watch and noticed I was about to get through 10 miles in a personal record time and knew I was on my way to a killer finishing time if I was just able to hold it together through the last 5k. Richmond finishes with a huge downhill in the last half mile, so my target was really just get to mile 12.5 and the last half mile would be a breeze. Kept talking to myself to just keep as steady as possible, things REALLY started getting hard, mile 11 was my slowest of the race. It was getting very hard for others around me too though I could tell. A couple guys that passed me peeled off or started walking and I passed them back, but my 19th kilometer was still my slowest kilometer of the race (4:40), however the downhill was in sight right after that so relief was on the way.
 |
| Finish line is in sight! |
Took the turn to the downhill finish and I was reminded of my marathon day in 2016, my back had massive cramping at that point so I wasn't able to take advantage of the downhill finish, today I avenged myself from the 2016 semi-failure and really flew through the downhill. My last kilometer was 4:02, by far the fastest of the race and it felt great. I flew through the finish line and saw on the clock 1:35:18, but I had forgotten that I started well after the first wave so when I looked at my watch and saw 1:34:35 I was overjoyed. Sub 1:35 accomplished a NINE minute personal best time. The culmination of one of the best training cycles of my life translated into a great race time, so sweet!
 |
| Headed to the finish line! |
 |
| Crossing the finish line! |
Afterwards I saw Ron who told me he was in fact the one that shouted out to me during the out and back portion of the race. He ran a personal record as well (1:38) which was awesome, we both had a killer fall racing season. I met up with Christian in the finisher area, he and his Dad had great races too. Christian said he hardly trained and still ran a 1:37, still a great time. He said he was sprinting so fast down the hill at the end he lost his hat and had to stop and turn around and get it, that finish is a blur, so fun!
 |
| Sweet victory, I just ran a nine minute PR! |
Post Race Reflections
There was really no one I recall running with for any extended period of time in this race, I was either passing people fairly quickly, or people passed me fairly quickly. Usually in races I latch on with someone for extended time but for some reason this race was a bit different. I suppose based off how I started and how things played out throughout the duration of the run that's just how the chips fell in this one. Overall I feel as though I ran as best as I possibly could with how my training cycle went, I left absolutely zero time on the course. It was a dream training cycle and a dream race. A ton of credit has to go to Eric for the coaching advice and believing I was capable of sub 1:35, I'm sure I would not have run as aggressively from the get go had that number not been floated in the week prior. I trusted my training and it paid off in a big way.
I'm now taking time off for the rest of the year, I'll resume some easy running through December but I spent quite a bit of effort getting into amazing shape for this race and will fully enjoy some time off before I start preparing for my next goal race likely the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in April which feels like so far away right now but the time seems to pass faster and faster these days so I'm sure it'll be here before I know it...Thanks for reading through this monster blog post...until next time!
Fantastic race! Congratulations!
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