United Healthcare Providence Half Marathon

I have been frustrated.  I have been frustrated since I crossed the finish line at the 117th Boston

(Up the Boulevard- mile 4)

Marathon.  For the amount of time and effort I put in preparing for Boston, I came up well short of my goals.  I did not run a time indicative of my fitness and came nowhere near my potential that day.  I have been reckless since Boston.  This is what I do when I do not like a result.  I jumped back into training, blaming myself and thinking that maybe I did not work hard enough to run the time I had hoped for.  I did not, however, run too many workouts in the past month.  My first workout back was two and a half weeks after Boston.  I decided after this workout that I would run the United Healthcare Half Marathon in Providence on May 12th.  This would provide me with an opportunity to get over my performance at Boston.  The half marathon course goes through my usual training grounds.  I knew every turn and where every hill was going into the race.  My body felt good but not great before the race.  I knew I was still recovering from Boston but I needed to deliver a solid run to get some confidence back.

The race:

After a slight delay to the half marathon, the gun went off and the race began.  The field began to separate by the first mile, which I went through in 5:42.  At this point, I was running in the top-10 and felt reasonably good.  My second mile was 5:46.  Then, the course climbs until you reach mile 3.  I kept my effort the same as my first two miles and split a 6:15 on the uphill mile.  The course is very challenging, featuring a good number of uphill and downhill miles.  My next four miles were all around 6:00.  I split: 6:06, 5:57, 6:04, 6:02.  I then recorded a 6:22 mile up Pleasant Street at mile 8.  This mile is virtually a gradual uphill climb the whole way through.  My next two miles were a combined 12:08, back closer to 6:00 pace.  I reached 10 miles in 1:00:25.  My last 5k was very challenging.  I dug deep and kept moving forward.  I covered this distance in a disappointing 19:30.  I would have liked to have held pace late in the race.  The course also did not help, as there was another big uphill section on Pitman Street leading into mile 11.  My closing 1.1 miles was in 6:34, which comes out to 5:58 pace.  This is encouraging that I pushed it to the finish line.  I crossed the finish line in 1:19:56 (6:06 pace).  This a new official half marathon PR, something that has eluded me since the fall.  I think I would have been able to keep my earlier miles in the 5:45-5:55 range had I been well rested.  I finished in 7th place overall out of nearly 2000 runners and took a 3rd place age group award.  I also want to thank the volunteers at the race.  They were all great and encouraged me along the course!  Overall, I am satisfied with this effort.  It was nice to go out and run consistent miles in the 6:00 range on a difficult course.  I should also mention the course was a little longer than 13.1 miles.  I measured it to be 13.4 miles.  This is pretty significant.  It would put me around 1:18:12 (5:58 pace) for the half marathon.  I measured the course to be 10.2 miles at the 10 mile mark.  This would have put me at 59:14 through 10 miles.  Either way, I still ran a new PR.  I think I was in 1:14-1:16 half marathon shape before Boston.  I am excited with my half marathon time in Providence, but I know I can run faster.  I am going to focus on the shorter distances this summer and attack my PRs from the 5k to the half marathon.  I am running the Chicago Marathon in October and am optimistic about achieving a real breakthrough in the marathon.  After a hard summer of running, I will be ready for Chicago.

Thoughts on Added Security:

This was my first race after the Boston Marathon bombings.  While Providence is a small city, it still made security a priority at the Cox Rhode Races.  There were police with automatic weapons patrolling the start/finish area and they were reportedly questioning spectators with backpacks.  Police also walked with bomb sniffing dogs among runners and spectators.  This personally did not make me feel safe.  I did not feel entirely comfortable competing in a race where I can see automatic weapons close to me.  We are starting to see the immediate backlash of the Boston Marathon bombings.  You have to consider if the police are questioning every spectators or if racial profiling is involved.  Acts of terror in recent years in the United States have been the work of domestic terrorists.  It is also important to ask if money could be better spent other than on police carrying automatic weapons at road races?  Who supplied the money that paid for the extra security?  While defense and security is important, we have a better chance of breaking racial and cultural boundaries by focusing in areas such as education.  I do not mean to be political but the added security did not have a calming effect on me as it may have for others.