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This past Sunday I ran the 2008 Rochester Half Marathon, completing in 1:41:29 - a 7:46/mile overall pace. This is the third year I’ve run the Rochester half, previously finishing with 1:45:05, 08:01/mile pace (2007) and 1:52:40, 8:36/mile pace (2006). While this was technically a PR (personal record), the split from the first half of my 2008 Buffalo (full) Marathon time was faster, falling in the 1:38s.

Ask anyone who participated this weekend about the race and odds are they will tell you about the weather. Wham, the D&C & RNews all mentioned the oppressive heat and humidity in their marathon article summaries. Forecasts the week prior called for race day temperatures in the 70s, a 60% chance of rain and wind. The day prior to the race was rainy and depressive, but still warm. As I headed to bed the night before the race around ~11pm, it was 72 out. At 5am the morning of the race, it was still 72 - but there was no rain. After the race, when I arrived back at my friend John’s place near Cobb’s Hill, it was a scorching 85. The heat and humidity were no fun for me, yet others on the course suffered even more - the wind arrived up shortly after my finish & those who ran the full were exposed to the sun for the majority of their extra half along the canal.

Events affecting the race started early in the week for me - the Tuesday prior I was up prior to 5:30 to complete some maintenance for work (from home). After the hour of work at home, I headed into the office and logged a typical 7:30(ish) to 4:00 day, followed by a swing over to a local bike shop to pick up a new road bike, dinner at the Pizza Plant with friends, a soccer game at 11pm and finally a 35 minute drive home to arrive just prior to 1am - an exhausting day. Luckily I pushed off the early morning work maintenance I had initially planned on doing that Wednesday, but still had to wake up early on Thursday to take care of it. Both Wednesday and Thursday included 5 mile hill runs after work. Friday was a day off from workouts, which I filled in with happy hour with co-workers at the Buffalo Brew Pub. I had planned on having a single beer (maybe two) there, but it turned into four. I left the Brew Pub shortly after 10, but headed to Mighty Taco to hang out with one of my co-workers who will be leaving us soon. Even before I left Mighty Taco, I felt horrible.

Since I don’t drink much alcohol these days, on Saturday my body reminded me it wanted nothing to do with those four beers. It told me it didn’t care for the Mighty Taco much either. I wasn’t sick, but knew immediately that morning I shouldn’t have had either. The gloomy weather Saturday compounded the contempt I had for allowing myself to slip Friday. After tacking on both the anxiety I had for the race in general and a good chance of being beat by my high mileage logging friend Greg, all things considered made for another long day.

Fortunately, I had an engagement party that evening to look forward to. Shortly after I arrived, I overheard my friend’s finance’s sister (a triathlete) talking to someone I didn’t know about running. I overheard “Rochester” and couldn’t help but work my way into the conversation. The gentleman she was talking to was her cousin Nick, who just happened to be running his first half the next day in Rochester! He was from the Buffalo area, but staying with his aunt that night in Chili When she heard I was also running the race, she asked me where I was staying and if I could pick him up early in the morning ( to save her from getting up). Chili and where I was staying in Cobb’s Hill aren’t near each other, so it wasn’t going to work. But as luck would have it, my friend Greg lives (literally) around the corner from Nick’s aunt. I felt a little awkward, but I called Greg to see if he and his crew might be able to pick him up. Although Greg had never met the guy, we promised him Nick wasn’t the Budweiser-and-ax carrying type of guy & Greg very kindly worked out the logistics to pick him up. (Thank you Greg!!)

After hooking him up with Greg, Nick and I talked quite a bit about running in general. I offered him advice and enjoyed sharing his enthusiasm for his first big race. Because of the way the ride worked out, we nicknamed Nick “Hitchhiker” - and yelled “go Hitchhiker go”, etc as we saw him approach the finish line Sunday. (Incidentally, Nick logged a 2:02:15, a respectful first time, especially in the heat!)

I spent the night prior to the race at my friend John’s house, enjoying a good sleep from ~11pm until 4:30am. This is the 2nd time I’ve spent on his couch the night prior to a race (the Spring Forward 15k being the last) & I really like it.  On race day, I headed to Frontier Field with my John and his lady friend Katy. (Even though John’s Big Lebowski fan club card was recently revoked, this reference is for him) After picking up our timing chips, we took the short walk to the start line. The course was altered slightly from years previous, so it was an even shorter walk this year. Once we arrived, I promptly managed to lose track of both of them. While wandering around, I saw a girl who runs Chestnut Ridge quite a bit and wished her luck. (She was running the full, but I didn’t see her cross the finish.) I still hadn’t found John, Katy or anyone else I knew by the time the full marathon started, so I lined up alone. Minutes later, my friends Greg and Mary seemingly showed up out of nowhere, as did Greg’s sister Donna and even Hitchhiker! Although I’d conversed with her many times via a running email list, this was the first time I’d met Donna - I can’t think of a more appropriate place to do so than a race starting line.

The starting pistol caught all of use by surprise. Race directors - improvement is needed at the start. Greg and I started off together, and after a short distance, we came up behind John. John’s goosed me a couple times by surprise in other races, so I motioned to Greg it was payback time. We executed a perfect double butt pinch that surprised the hell out of John. I assure you all it was a very straight and masculine pinch.

Greg and I continued on together for the first 6 miles. Just short of Wegmans on East Ave., we saw a spectator dressed in a gorilla suit. (Well at least I hope it was a spectator dressed in a gorilla suit…) We continued to run together, but I slowed at the 2nd water station to get a drink. As it was a little overcast to start the race, I had my sunglasses up on the top of my head. I threw some water on my face/head, forgetting the sunglasses were there & knocking them right off my head. I’d never done this before & had to stop to pick them up. Greg slowed briefly for water, but nowhere near as much as I did - a pattern I saw repeated at all the water stops we ran through together. After this first water stop, I caught back up to Greg on the Winton hill - I’ve been training on hills & know Greg didn’t enjoy them previously. But on this Sunday, he climbed hills at a pace that surprised me quite a bit. Although I’d previously pulled away from Greg on the uphills, he always caught me on the downhills. Today he kept up with me on the climbs, but we weren’t racing, so it didn’t matter. Once we started on the downhill at mile 6, Greg pulled away from me & that was the last I saw of him until after I finished. Greg maintained the pace we started at, completing in an extremely impressive 1:35:41, a 7:19/mile overall pace.

My pace slowed considerably from there to the end - I clocked a 6:56 for mile 6, somehow dropped to a 9:20 for mile 8 & then returned to sub 8 minute miles for the remainder. A couple times during the second half of the race, I encouraged walkers to run again, patting them on the back as encouragement. It worked for them & reinvigorated me as well. I remember well a gentlemen who did the same for me my first half & how much it helped. Miles 10 to the end were the most enjoyable of the race to me. I paced miles 11 through 13 with a girl & we acquired another runner in our small group for miles 12-13. The finish chute placement was improved this year, eliminating a teasing run a block past and back to it. When I turned the final corner, I told the girl who was still with me to give it all she had, but I pulled away alone, creating quite a gap. Half way down the chute, I looked behind me, finding myself in no-man’s land & losing my desire to push it to the end. When I looked up at the finish line, I thought the full marathon clock was the clock for the half marathon runners & was depressed to think I ran a 1:55. Immediately I comforted myself by saying “it must have been hotter than I thought”. Before I crossed, I caught the half marathon clock out of the corner of my eye, but mistakenly read my time on it as 1:46. My iPod told me I’d run a lot quicker though, so I remained confused and disappointed until nearly 45 minutes later, when I finally saw my time on the results board, at 1:41:26.

Conditions considered, I shouldn’t have been disappointed with my time. But being beat by Greg really blurred what happened that day - I still managed to run a 7:46/mile pace for 13.1 miles in that heat. I don’t do well in heat. I had a long week prior. I forgot my GPS watch. I wore a different pair of socks. I thought I did worse than I did when I mis-read the clock.

It blows my mind that I ran a faster half during my first half of the Buffalo Marathon. I’m really quite content with having run a 7:46/mile pace. And when I look at it that way, Greg’s 7:19/mile pace becomes incredibly impressive. He deserves a lot of credit for that performance - it’s obvious his hard training payed off (4 consecutive 50 mile weeks!?).

My 1:41:26 placed me 79/1300+ half marathon runners and 9th in the 25-29 male age group.

I have lots of reasons for not having performed even better this race. But most of them are fixable - and so I think I’m going to fix them at the Run for the Grapes half marathon in two weeks and target a 1:35:40…

Credit goes to John, turning in 1:48:52 PR, Mary for her first half in 2:32 & Donna for a 2:11 (Donna, I hear Tiger Woods was impressed). John, I didn’t catch Katy’s time - comment here or email it to me, as she deserves some credit as well.

It was wonderful to have such a large gathering of running friends & to see them all do so well. Greg and Mary had the runners and lots of family over afterwards, where we ate lots of food, enjoyed the air conditioning & soaked in the satisfaction of having all run yet another long race.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 12:44 pm and is filed under running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.