Message posted by: Bradley H.

Yesterday I ran the Whidbey Island Half Marathon. It is the third year in a row that I have done it, but it has been a different course each year, so I have never known exactly what to expect.

My goal going into the race was to average 8 minutes per mile. This was also my goal when I ran the race last year, and when I ran the Seattle Half-Marathon in November. In last year’s race I followed a group in the wrong direction for a while and ended up running an extra .6 or .7 miles – I estimated that I averaged 8 minute miles for about my first 10 miles of running, but then I had to slow way down and was probably going slower than 10 minute miles for my last 3 or 4 miles. At Seattle, I figured out by mile 3 that I wasn’t going to make my goal, and I kept revising it towards slower times the further I went. Since my last two attempts had been fairly disappointing, I was not overly confident. I read an article that had formulas for estimating what pace you might be able to do in 10K, 13.1, 26.2 based on your mile time, then I worked backwards to see what mile time I should be able to run if I wanted to do an 8 minute pace. That number was 6:40, so I warmed up
and ran a mile at that speed on a treadmill. My heart rate only got up to 169, and it didn’t seem that bad, so I decided my goal was reasonable…

One of my first challenges was to dress right for the weather – I had been too cold in last year’s race, and I was too hot in Seattle. The weather turned out to be 40 degrees and windy. I had tights, long sleeved shirt, hat, gloves, and windbreaker. I was planning to leave the windbreaker in the car, but the wind changed my mind. For this year’s race the start and finish were about two miles apart, and there was a lot of construction near the start which reduced parking. I decided to park partway between the start and finish and leave plenty of time to walk over. Consequently, I had about 40 minutes to do my walk and wait around for the race to start, and I was glad to be warm enough. Saturday had been cold and very rainy, so lots of people commented on how nice the weather was – no rain, and a bit of sun shining through the clouds. I took off the hat and gloves after about a mile of running, and I tied the windbreak around my waist a few minutes later, and I
was pretty comfortable like that until the finish.

When I packed for the race, I forgot a piece to my heart monitor, so I had to rely on feel for whether I was pushing too hard, slacking off, etc. It didn’t help that I didn’t see the early mile markers. I passed the first water stop at 16 minutes, so I guessed that maybe the water stop was at the 2 mile mark and that I wasn’t going any faster than my goal pace. I tried to concentrate on my form and keep up the pace. Finally I saw a mile marker for mile 4 – I had been running 30 minutes, so I had been averaging 7:30’s to that point. The 5th mile was mostly uphill, and it took almost exactly 8 minutes, so I was very happy with my pace at that point. The hills on the course were not very steep, but fairly long. Mile 6 took about 8 minutes as well. The 7th mile was less comfortable – I started getting some pains in my abdomen that I later figured out were gas pains. This slowed me down a bit, so that mile was about 9 minutes.

Last year I never ate any breakfast before doing races (running or triathlons), but all of the advice I had seen on doing Ironman races indicates that you should get up early and eat breakfast before you start, and then eat more during the race. Consequently, I have started eating breakfast before my long runs, and I have done o.k. on the training runs. They had a free continental breakfast at my hotel, starting at 6 am, so I had a bowl of raisin bran and a few slices of fruit. I think the orange slice was a bad move! The breakfast was packed with runners. One guy who sat at my table looked pretty fast, and judging from his accent I’d guess he was from Africa. He is living in the Tacoma area now, and he was in 5th place when the leaders passed me going the opposite way.

I got confused when I looked at my split for 8 miles. At 62:00 minutes I passed a cardboard sign saying 8, which would have been a 7 minute mile, but 1 minute later I went past an 8 spray-painted on the pavement. I couldn’t remember which type of marker I had seen for 7 miles, but I decided that after I’d forced out some orangey tasting burps I had gotten back to 8 minute pace. Between 8 and 9 there was a water stop and a turn around. My times after 10 and 11 miles were 80:20 and 88:25 (by 11 the signs and spray painted numbers were both in the same place), so I figured I was going to do better than in my last two half marathons. Every time people came up behind me I would let them pass me and then try to draft off them for a while. Pretty much all of them beat me, but the point was to use them to help me go faster. Finally I reached the sign that said 26 (for the full marathon) and I kicked it in really hard for the last 2 tenths of a mile. At the finish line I sa
w a clock that said 2:12:02, which I knew was for the full marathon times. After I got some water and a bagel I put my hat, gloves, and windbreaker back on and wandered back towards the finish area. At that point I saw the second clock for the half marathon times, so I figured out the time difference between the clocks and concluded that my time was about 1:45:50. That’s about 8:05 per mile, and is only 1% slower than my goal, so I am pretty happy with it!

It took me about 20 minutes to walk back to my car. At one point I tried to jog a little, but I almost immediately realized that I was going faster by walking, so I just walked. My legs were fairly sore, and my feet felt bruised, but unlike past times my Achilles tendons were not killing me. I ran the race in my training shoes, using the orthotics that I’ve had for about a month. It definitely helped on the Achilles, although it might be a factor in the bruising. I plan to get another pair soon so that when I am doing my long race in the summer I won’t have to choose between a pair that might be too worn out or one that still needs breaking in.

Summary

Number of Finishers: 1,304

Number of Females: 881

Number of Males: 423

Average Time: 2:30:02

Bradley Hammond

bib number: 2233

age: 52

gender: M

location: Bellevue, WA

overall place: 104 out of 1304

division place: 5 out of 33

gender place: 80 out of 420

time: 1:45:51

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