My third and probably final race of 2020 was the Zombie Half Marathon last Saturday. Unfortunately, I did not go out with a bang on this one–if anything it was a bust. Okay, not a total bust but enough that I am still kind of bummed about it a week later. I’m not losing sleep over it, but I have been thinking about it a lot. If anything, it has motivated me to keep working hard because I know it did not show my true potential.
Going into the race, I was thinking I could run a 1:26/1:27 and hoping that I could run faster postpartum this time around than I did after having Cullen 5 years ago where I ran 1:27:20. I had been having solid workouts, and my coach had me do a little mini taper in preparation for the race. I felt good in the days leading up to the race and kept the thoughts positive.
My A, B, and C goals for the race were as follows:
A goal: I thought on a perfect day, if everything went well, and I felt awesome, I could run a 1:25.
B goal: My pretty ‘safe’ goal was a finish time of 1:26/1:27.
C goal: If I things didn’t go well, I knew I could still run under 1:30. (Prior to having Cullen, this would have been a really good time for me. Oh how the times have changed.)
(I have an entire blog post dedicated to writing A, B, and C goals for your next race HERE if you want to learn more about goal setting.)
Race morning brought temps in the low 30s, and I considered wearing my favorite running tights, but I’m glad I opted for shorts. I did wear a tank + arm warmers with the race long sleeve shirt over top, but I ditched the long sleeve at mile 4.
The race had waves of 50 people starting every 15 minutes. The waves were not by your pace, which would defeat the purpose of keeping people spread out during the race. I started out feeling good and honed in on that 6:35 pace early on, which is what I was targeting as an overall pace. I wasn’t always sure what my actual pace was because the trail we run on is tree-covered, and it doesn’t always pick up a good signal. In the open areas, I made sure my pace right was around 6:35, but the manual laps/splits I was taking weren’t that fast, unfortunately. I did my best to maintain what I thought was a 6:35 effort, but when the manual splits were consistently closer to 6:45, I knew I wasn’t going to run as fast as I had hoped.
I did my best to stay positive and engaged despite there being hardly anyone out cheering, and it often just felt like I was doing a workout by myself. For the most part I felt quite good though and just hoped for the best.
Around mile 7, my friend Neil showed up on his bike to bike which me, which was so nice! It was a great distraction to have someone to chase, he talked me through the hills, and I had someone to keep me company.
Everyone who knows this course, knows how pure torture the last hill is–175 feet of elevation gain in the last 0.5 mile of the race. No one likes it, and everyone complains about it. Ha! I think it has become easier over the years, and it does plateau in the middle for a little bit.
As I crossed the finish line, I was spent, and I knew I ran hard. (Plus, my body is still feeling the effects nearly a week later. Oh the joys of getting older.)
Official Results
Time – 1:28:51
Average pace – 6:47
Overall female place – 5th place (It was a competitive race!)
Age group place – 1st
All in all, I’m not going to beat myself up too much about the race. I did sign up for CIM (California International Marathon) back in April, but it has since been canceled. It was going to be my marathon this year and a chance to break 3 hours in the marathon, but after this performance, it would have been a stretch to achieve that goal, I think. So I’ll keep at it. Keep putting the work in and doing what I can each day, week, month. Good thing I enjoy the process!
