Union Half Marathon 3/20/21
Half marathon #44 in the books!
I had high hopes after my race at Strawberry Plains at the end of January, which went very well. Unfortunately, not every race goes exactly according to plan. (I really should know better by now, I have had far more races like this one in the past few years than races like Strawberry Plains.). It’s just so hard not to get excited and think that each race can be perfect 😂.
Me with one of my former athletes, pre-race. (She did awesome, and ran an especially strong final 2 miles!)
The race itself was well organized, with quick and easy packet pick-up, easily accessible indoor bathrooms (and because of the small entry field…no lines!!). At the start, runners were sent out in waves of 25. I had planned to start in wave 2 since I use the first mile as my warm-up, but there were several empty spaces in wave 1 and I didn’t want them to go to waste, so I took one. (I also talked some of my friends into joining me…they had also planned to start in wave 2.) The course was fairly well marked with chalked arrows on the ground, as well as volunteers at most corners. We ran a loop around the Green Belt, then spent some time on the road, eventually heading uphill on a narrow and steep 1 lane road that led to the unpaved trail to Appalachia. Thankfully it eventually turned back into pavement. Once in Appalachia, we ran a loop through a neighborhood, and then headed back down the trail, retracing our steps to Bullitt Park for a lap around the track to finish.
My hope was to run a 1:35 (like at Strawberry Plains) or faster today. The reality is that my allergies have been bad for the past week, combined with being on my period, which always saps my energy pretty bad. The result was that even though I treated the first mile as a warm-up and felt like the pace was easy, I was already noticing labored breathing in the 2nd or 3rd mile. This was discouraging, but I decided to hope for the best and not slow down. I never looked at my watch, but I could feel that the pace was reasonable even though my breathing was suggesting otherwise. The first 4-5 miles were very flat, which was hard for my legs, and then we finally started heading uphill. I didn’t feel as strong as usual on the hills, but I continued maintaining the effort. I started feeling strong on the gradual incline into Appalachia, but then lost my energy again as we ran a loop through the town. I used my inhaler somewhere between miles 7 and 8, but that caused me to struggle even more for a bit as I worked to get my breathing rhythm back. When the course turned around and headed back to Big Stone Gap, I knew that the majority of the remaining miles were downhill. I tried to use that to my advantage, but my lungs were still struggling to supply enough oxygen to my legs. As the miles went by, it became harder and harder to maintain my effort, but I kept digging deep and trying my best. Every now and then I would feel better for a few strides and think maybe I could start pushing, but it never lasted long and always left me even more out of breath. I considered giving up and jogging it in, but managed to convince myself to keep pushing. I knew I was the 3rd place female, and there was no one near me either in front or behind. The final quarter mile of the race was run around a track, and I had hoped to at least sprint that lap, but I was struggling very hard for air at that point, and could only maintain some semblance of a steady pace with no kick. I crossed the line in 1:40:33, with extremely labored breathing. I was disappointed that I hadn’t run faster, but realistically I knew that it was impossible for me to have run any faster. I ran the race that my lungs allowed me to run, and now it’s time to recover and try again at my next race in May!
I finished 3rd female, and 16th overall, out of 53 women and 113 total runners.
