Pittsburgh Half Marathon Recap

I did it!  I finished the half marathon! I have to admit I'm a little bummed about my time but Dave keeps reminding me that even two days beforehand I wasn't sure I was even going to be able to do it because of my injury to my left knee/leg.

I'm dividing this into 3 posts because I just wrote and wrote and wanted to put up a good number of pictures:
Before the race
Actual race (this post)
After the race

Dave followed as long as he could- there we go! (not quite running yet)

We started out, Mandy, Jen, and myself. We had good energy and were excited. And the best part??? My left leg felt perfectly fine. The last few weeks it has even hurt to walk around and I was able to start off the race with no pain whatsoever. That was such a relief. It was pretty crowded so I think we were pretty slow. The first overpass we crossed under everyone was shouting and even I did (yelled woooo or something like that). The energy was just amazing.

Around the 1st mile, I was weaving through people to get moving and I heard a yell behind me. I turned around, and didn't see Mandy or Jen anywhere. It turns out they stopped to wait in line for a porta potty. I kept going, because I had no idea what had happened and didn't want to turn back around to find them. I hoped they didn't mind. Sometimes I think I do better mentally anyways by myself, although I did consciously grit my teeth and say, guess I'm going it alone, I can do this.

The first 5 miles were fairly strong for me. I didn't walk until about 4.5 miles in and was averaging around a 10 minute pace. I think the first time I walked was up a bridge and not for very long. But when I hit 5 miles, I started to feel pretty tired. I also don't remember a whole lot from most of the race, it was such a blur. I got a lot of compliments on my Dogfish Head shirt. It was also a little hard (mentally) to see the relay points. The first one was at 5.5 miles and I was thinking- If I'd just signed up for the relay I could be done now. :) And I would have pushed it harder for that. Also, you'd see a fresh pair of legs (they all had  relay sign on their backs) and that was actually a little hard because I was already feeling it.

Around 6 or 7 miles, my feet started really hurting. I knew I had blisters, and I knew ahead of time I would get them. I was wearing my "old" pair of shoes which are about 1/2 a size too small for running. But I figured that was better than having major calf pain again. The blisters were bad enough early on that I thought I might have lost a toenail. I felt something in my sock that was loose, and I've lost a toenail before (not from running yet though), and I tried not to think about it.

The race itself was pretty fun when I wasn't trying to figure out how many miles I had left. You round a corner and it's just a sea of people, all running, ahead and behind you. I posted a video below of the finish and you can kind of see just how many people there were- it's a stream crossing the finish line!  I wish I had taken a picture of that somehow.

I also texted Dave a few times- when I'd start walking. He laughed- I had asked him where he was on Carson Street so I could find him and he said between 17th and 18th streets. This is my text responding back to that:

"Kk.  Almost g
To mile 9"

I ended up talking to another woman soon after that text- she and I ran together until I saw Dave, who was with Doug and Jan. They didn't see me until I ran right up to them. If I hadn't stopped, they wouldn't have even known I passed them. I talked to them for a minute or so, and Dave told me that I was on pace for a 2:18 half marathon. That was based on my 10K time. When I realized that I got excited and said, ok, better keep moving and started running again.

Walking, starting to run after talking to Dave, Don, and Jan

I also saw Mandy's parents a few streets later and paused to talk to them as well.

Mandy's mom took this picture.  I did not look even close to as tired/bad as I felt

After that, the half and full marathons split. During the race, like I said before, it was really just a blur. I know I started walking every so often at around 4.5 miles but I didn't realize that up until 10 miles I actually was within 1 minute of the training runs I had when I was at the top of my game (before injury). So I was actaully still doing ok. But after the split, we went over the Birmingham Bridge and I just think mentally I started to check out. I walked a lot the last 3 miles. I did end up talking to another woman at the top of the bridge and I ran with her for a little bit. On the Birmingham Bridge, though, a spectator was encouraging everyone and saying that after this hill it was all downhill. NOT TRUE! :) We rounded the corner and turned left onto Boulevard of the Allies and it was uphill again. I just needed a break by that point. I hadn't ever run more than 10 miles before and hadn't trained the last 5 weeks or so, not like I wanted to. The other woman I was running with wanted to keep going so I told her good luck and walked. The view was breathtaking. It was really cool as well to be walking on a road that doesn't even have sidewalks. I really enjoyed looking over at the Southside during that and didn't even worry about time or how long I walked there.

Somewhere in the last 3 miles my hips also started hurting. I was really surprised at that. Usually if I get sore, it's in my lower half of my legs and/or my hamstrings. My quads and hips have always been great. That's part of the reason I kept walking- it hurt more to run and the faster I ran the worse that hurt.

Boulevard of the Allies finished out the race. As I was headed back down the hill, I think I was running again, and I heard my name yelled. This was probably around 12.25 or 12.5 miles, I'm not sure. Mandy and Jen had caught up to me. I slowed down to let them catch up but they had a lot of energy and kept going. I couldn't keep up. Mandy did turn around and I waved her on saying I couldn't run any faster anymore. I think I was at a 10:30ish pace then. I did kick it up right at the end but they kicked it up even more. They ended up finishing about 20 seconds in front of me.

The end seemed SO long. You could see the end but it felt like it was forever. I was just ready to be done and drink some water.

My official finish time was 2:32:17. I never said time goals to anyone but at the peak of my training I was actually thinking about beating a 10 mile pace and running the half in under 2:10. With the lack of training, in my head, I kind of revised that to 2:30. This is where Dave keeps telling me I finished it and that was awesome in itself and to stop being so hard on myself.

And here is a link to a video online showing me crossing the finish line.


In the video, the half marathoners are on the right side of the cones and the marathoners are on the left side of the cones. I'm as far left as I can get on the half marathoner side. A marathoner comes up right before I cross and takes his time after he crosses the line, which blocks me a little bit. I think if you know where to look you can see me throw my arms in the air around 6:31 of this video. Mandy and Jen crossed earlier- all the way to the right and you can see Jen's terrible towel waving in the air around 6:19 in the video.  

Mile	Mile Split	Total Time
1	10:01	10:01
2	09:50	19:50
3	10:06	29:56
4	10:06	40:02
5	11:40	51:41
6	10:58	1:02:39
7	11:31	1:14:10
8	11:40	1:25:50
9	12:08	1:37:58
10	12:51	1:50:49
11	13:56	2:04:45
12	13:50	2:18:35
13	11:35	2:30:09
13.21	02:18	2:32:28

Oh, one more thing I have to say about the race itself.  Maybe a few things.  First, crowd support was amazing. There were a lot of entertaining signs along the way and our names were on our bibs so strangers were cheering us on by name. I appreciated that. And for Pittsburgh, I know I commented on hills above but it really was a fairly flat course considering some of the hills/areas around here. The marathon had a pretty big hill from what I hear but the half wasn't too bad at all.