No such thing as easy: B&A Trail Half-Marathon 2011

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend was my second running of my first half-marathon: the B&A Trail Half-Marathon in Severna Park. I completed three other halfs in 2010 as well, but I never beat my B&A time of 2:24:05. So, I went into this year's race with one goal: beat my 2010 time. The B&A course is almost totally flat- probably the flattest course I've ever run. Thus, if you are going to set a PR (personal record), this race is a good place to do it.

Going into the race, I thought that I could easily knock five minutes off my time. On the whole, I run faster now that I did last year at this time. More importantly, I ran into two issues in last year's race that I did not anticipate repeating. First, I violated one of basic rules of racing: don't try any new foods the night before a race. My penalty for breaking this rule was at least four bathroom stops over the course of the race. I won't do that again! Second, Val fell down, hard, during mile 12 of last year's race. Being the warrior that she is, she got up and finished, despite a black eye and some seriously wounded pride. Between the bathroom stops and helping Val up, I figured that I lost at least 5 minutes in last year's race. So, all I had to do was eat something bland the night before and watch my step and I had a 2:19 finish time in the bag, right?

Turned out, it wasn't so easy. This is one of the first races that I entered with a specific time goal in mind, and probably the first time I really kept track of my pace throughout the whole race. My plan was to do what I should have done during the Parks Half-Marathon back in September: keep a steady pace until at least mile 10, and then step it up at the end if I could. I ran the 2010 race at an 11-minute/mile pace, so I needed to stay a little ahead of that throughout, and then give it whatever I had left in the end.

The first half of the race felt pretty easy. I was keeping the pace without difficulty; in fact, I probably felt better in miles 4-6 than I have ever felt in a race. After the turnaround, though, it got tougher. By that point, Val (who is recovering from a knee issue) had fallen behind me, so I was on my own, rallying my inner cheerleader to keep going. Around mile 9 or 10, I slipped off pace a bit. So, at the point when I had planned to speed up, I was fighting just to stay on pace. Fortunately, I was able to do it, and I changed my goal to just holding pace until the end. When I reached the end of the trail, which is almost the end of the race, my watch showed me at 2:16. That was enough motivation to speed up and race for the finish. When I crossed, the race clock and my watch said 2:20, but I later found out that my chip time was 2:18:55. So, in the end, I knocked off a hard-fought 5 minutes, 10 seconds.

At the finish, I met up with several Striders friends and witnessed some major accomplishments. Solomon from our marathon training group beat his previous best time by 27 minutes. My friend Jen knocked 9 minutes off her previous best time, and has improved by 25 minutes in just two years. Val's friend Marie, who was running her first half, kept a pace of 9:50 for the whole race. (To put that in perspective, my best 5K pace has been 9:46.) Despite her injury and missing several key long runs, Val managed to finish in just under 2:30.      

After everyone finished, we gathered for some photos and snacks inside:

Myself, Val, and Marie.

I had a slice of pizza, which was probably the best pizza I have ever had. Then, I spent the rest of the day wrestling with the usual insatiable hunger. I wish I could say that I satisfied it with apples and bananas, but I actually went with a burrito and a milkshake. Fortunately, the hunger has abated today, so I might be able to salvage this week food-wise before my Wednesday Weight Watchers check-in.

Congratulations to my friends and all of this year's B&A runners. See you in 2012!