Santa Cruz 2013 Half Marathon Goals

(Note: I ran this race and did PR 8). Race report is here)

So back in 2009 I had run my first marathon (napa) and was all full of beans.

I ran the Santa Cruz Half and I nailed it with a PR of 1:51:26. I have only run a couple of half marathons since and never for a PR. In that race I actually paced fairly well:

You can see I got up to about 60s under my actual finishing pace and then lost this time back over the 2nd half. I think this is pretty good.

The are some mild hills on this course:

You can see there is about 80' rise in the middle of this out-and-back course. Not enough to be killer ...just enough to give some other muscles a chance to help out. Not worried about it.

One difficult thing: you bomb down Cliff Drive to the finish which is ON THE BEACH. Yup you heard me: you split off the road and run about 20 meters IN THE SAND. It sucks, but I plan to use a powerful lifting arm swing and high knees lift as well  to power through this crap to the timing mat.

Goals

The primary goal is to reach 8:30 m/m and show I'm ready to run a 3:55 marathon. I did time trials just before both of my peaked marathons last year at this pace. Running a 3:55 is my primary goal at Tacoma on 5/5/13 and reaching this pace in the half lets me know I'm ready to do it again.

The secondary goal is to PR in the half...beat 1:50:26...that would be great!

The tertiary goal ..the super uber wonderful goal...is to get in at 1:4x..... this is an 8:23 pace..and would be so SWEET. 

Typically the garmin reads 5s higher than actual so that would mean 8:18 on the garmin. I really don't think I'm quite there, but I am probably going to give it a try if I feel good and the weather etc are good on race day.

The Plan

The picture is from my 2009 run. I will post any pictures I get from this year and I look forward to comparing the two. I feel like I have more muscle than I did then (no mean feat when going from 53 to 57) but we'll see 8). I ran a 4:15 at San Francisco in July 2009 after this race.

Sunday I will be wearing my fleet footed Kinvara 3's. After training in the heavier Brooks Launches it feels so fast to run in them 8).  I think it's perfect to train mostly in the more cushioned shoe but do enough in the faster shoe to be ready to harvest the benefits in a race. We'll see how that works out!

(BTW: In the photo I was wearing  Nike *F*King* Vomeros  and about to get massive Achilles Tendonitis in a few more weeks)

Anyway, I always take a mile or two to get rolling at full pace, and the first mile has the pop-up to Cliff Drive level (about 50 feet) ...so I plan to not worry too much about the first couple of miles. I'll probably have  10-15s to make up.

Last time I ran this race, the Garmin noise factor was very very low...so as soon as I get a split at mile 3 and compare with my pace band and see how the noise is going I will adjust to run the 8:23 actual pace via the Garmin.

I run with a Garmin 610 and show the current mile split as well as the running average. I work to make each mile split exactly as planned and therefore keep the average exactly where I want it.

I plan to hold the 8:23 (actual) pace as long as I can. If I have anything else to give I will deliver it in the last 4 miles and hopefully I will do well and get down to 1:4x.

There you go! 

This week I am running light with a little fast running but mostly bouncing back from my 50 mile week and previous hard hitting weeks. I want to be a bit tapered for this race so I can do really well. I will have so many miles ahead of the game vs Eugene and Cim that I feel I can still nail Tacoma.

The forecast for Sunday is looking pretty good..cool (48F in the morning) and overcast. Perfect! There is some wind forecast (8mph) but the course is an out - and - back so it's not that bad. The temps being low and no *Sun* is the main thing.

Gradually I'm getting psyched up for this race.