Ocean's Run 1/2 Marathon

Hello race - half/full training day

I have been toying with running the Ocean's Run 1/2 Marathon for a year and a half now. I did not register until yesterday. I was lucky enough to have a certificate that covered the entry fee which I won at the Girls on the Run fundraiser 5k that I did back in June with my youngest. So yesterday I just had to drive about 45 minutes to the registration site and take care of the registration. Here is a hint: If they don't give you a course map, but they have a map out at registration, take a photo of it on your phone so you can consult it at will before the race!

Here we are hiking out to the start line near the beach.

Oh yeah! There is an ocean at Ocean's Run! Hello Atlantic/Long Island Sound!

I ran the race because I wanted to last year but passed on it in the end, and because I needed to get in a longer run for my marathon training.  My plan was to run the splits I intend to run for my fall marathons under race conditions to see how it felt. Of course as the race start approached, I did not think I would really be able to hold myself back to 10 minute miles. So I resolved to run within a easy pace whatever that meant in the moment.  So I just ran, not too hard, but also not super easy. I also practiced tweeting photos from the race course. It is fun to be able to share. I learned a few things about tweeting on the go. 1. I need to turn off the password on my phone. 2. Keep it short. 3. Once I decided to really race all tweeting went out the window! So happily I ran along, ran along, ran along, happily I ran along early on Sunday morning! (Feel free to sing it.)

1st race photo tweet

2nd tweet

3rd tweet

At one point 4 women passed me while I was tweeting. I found that I did slow down although I could also keep moving while tweeting. But that was okay...this was a slower than race pace run for the first half of a full right? I mean this was all about October's full right? Well kind of...my competitive side was right there waiting to kick in. I passed a couple of the women back and just kept going. I practiced my never look back rule. Somewhere around mile 9 a course flagger told me I was the 18th woman on the course. (In the end I think she was wrong.) And she told me 17 and 16 were right in front of me. Well that was it...I went for it. I was 17th and then I was 16th. With a couple miles left it looked like I might become 15th, but I never did pass her. I knew full well that the entire women's field seemed to be in their 40s, so my age group. I knew I would not place, I have never placed, but I still wanted to finish strong.  That I did.

For the last mile I challenged another runner to the finish line. He was throwing in walk breaks and his friends were acknowledging that this was not his best effort, but I let him know I expected him to beat me. He totally looked like he had it in him. Then when he announced that he would run it in with me I pointed out the finish area within our sight and told him to go for it! He did! I finished right behind him. Funny that we were 249 and 250!

249 & 250

Looks like I finished as the 23rd woman.  My final rankings were Div/Tot 10/33 and Sex/Tot 23/81.
1st in my Div was 1:30:08.  2nd was 1:34:08.  3rd was 1:36:47.  Those ladies are fast!

Update: I just went back and checked my PR...it was 1:54:52 = New PR for me! 1:53:43!

My plan was always to double back on the course and put in some extra miles (exact amount undetermined). So I did. Early in the race I was surprised to see a friend was running the race when I passed her coming and going around mile 2.5, but I figured that I would run it back to her and then join her to the finish. I ended up putting in 16.5 today.  I am coming off 3 weeks of illness so this was my first effort to reestablish my marathon training distance for October 14th at the Amica Marathon in Newport, RI and 2 weeks later at the Marine Corps Marathon in DC. It was a great run. I learned a few things and I practiced running past the 1/2 marathon finish line, which is exactly what I will have to do in Newport.

Go Linda! She always has a great costume on to liven up race day!

A second finish line photo! My medal was safely tucked in my pouch!