364 participants. That was the final count for the WMA Mother's Day Half Marathon in Whately Ma yesterday (5/12/13). 364 people lined up at the Yankee Candle Production plant on Christian Lane to make the 13.1 mile journey through the area that myself and my father grew up. This actually becomes a significant number to me now that I have seen the final results.
Let me rewind a little and reflect more on the day of the first half marathon that I have run. First, I have a fairly active brain, which is shown by me typing my thoughts our on this blog. So, when I have an anticipated event in my life, I tend to think about it and probably over analyze it. In doing so, I come up with expectations for how things will go, like I was doing for the week leading up to the race. I wrote in my last post my hopes for the race and what was happening and what I expected to happen. Well, my expectations were completely scrapped by the events that actually transpired through the day.
There was one part of the day which really set itself a part from anything else, and that was my wife deciding to wake the boys up and bring them down to be at the finish line for the race. There really is no better surprise than to have to have my loved ones waiting for me as I crossed the finish line. Not only that, but my wife gave up her Mother's Day morning to bring the boys down to see my cross the finish line. I really don't have a way to thank her for such a selfless act that meant so much to me. Basically I was sprinting across the finish line when I saw them standing there....the end of the race was after and overpass so I was going pretty fast. I saw them right after I crossed but I couldn't slow down at that point so I had to go past them, then as my brain caught up to the events I then had to compose myself a little so that I didn't end up completely breaking down. There is no possible way I can thank my wife enough or appropriately for what she did.
The not as important part was the race itself, the second part of my expectations. I had posted that I was hoping with my training that I would be able to finish the race in under 1:45, with the belief that would put me in the top 50. If that had happened I would have been incredibly excited about how things went. I had a plan going into the race where I split up the mileage into three sections. The first 4 miles I wanted to really do a good push at a pretty fast pace, the next 6 miles were to be a nice cruising pace, with the last 3 miles I would push hard to the finish, especially the last mile. So I lined up in the top 50, cruised nicely out the start to get to a spot around those that were sprinting out the start and into a good groove. I was able to get to a nice spot about a half mile down the road, which was oddly right at about the house my father grew up in.
The first 4 miles has a little more hills than I expected, but some nice views of the Pioneer Valley. But I hit the four mile mark and went tried to slow and stretch my stride some. I didn't use GPS or even wear a watch to keep my time. I just put on my playlist and went, not worrying about the time. I was figuring that I wouldn't get too high or too low if I just ran and didn't compete, I mean really, I wasn't going to win. The winner jumped out to an early lead and finished the race in 1:24:54, which was about 5 minutes faster than the next runner! Through the next 6 miles I found the nice flat roads a long the Connecticut River. I was passed by two people during that time which was fine. I hit every water stop through those miles to recharge with drink and to pour water over my head once. I was wearing a hat but it had gotten too hot to deal with so I needed to cool down. The only issue I really had, was at about 8 miles the course went by a Water Treatment Plant, I am guessing a few people probably had an issue with running past that smell.
I hit the ten mile marker and started to increase my pace. I caught up to one runner that had passed me (the other was pretty far ahead) and ran with them for a little time. The final water stop was at about 11.5 and I downed a quick gulp and put everything I had left. There was a significant hill at the point that was really hard after over 11 miles. But I made it up, went all out through the slight down hill and sprinted to the finish line. The results of how it all went can be found here:
http://www.coolrunning.com/results/13/ma/May12_WMAMot_set1.shtml
Thank you all to have supported me, pushed me, and read my blog thus far. Special thanks to my wife for allowing me spend time training and listening to me, and my parents for randomly letting me buy running shoes and footing the bill. I am going to continue to run and post and hopefully decide soon if I want to run a half marathon in Swanzey NH or the Clarence DeMar Marathon in Keene.
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