Charity Chase

Now that a friend of mine has linked to this on her facebook page, maybe I should update more.

On Saturday I ran the Charity Chase half marathon in Hickory, NC. Before I start, one thing you should know about me. I don't run well in the heat. I can train in the heat slowly (9:30-10 minute/mile pace), but I can't race. Heat for me is anything over 65 for running. Well, midday that's great but in the morning 60-65 means it's going to be 80-90 later, and that's hot. In the summer I have a 10AM rule - be done with my run for the day by 10AM. After that it's too hot for me. I am a heavy sweater, and I tend to push my body temperature up a bit. I wonder if I get close to overheating (although I always know when to slow down).

Anyway, Saturday was pretty humid. It was about 66 or so at the start of the race at least.

But the race course was sadistic with hills. Holy cow. For those of you that have run with me, Coach Bubba and Umstead are probably the toughest courses around. This was way worse. At mile marker 11, there is what had to be a 100 foot incline over 200-300 yards. That was the worst obviously, but the hills were constant.

Let me put it this way. This was my 4th half marathon, not counting 2 20km races (Coach Bubba in Durham is 20km, which is 12.4 miles). For the 2 20km, I finished about 1:54. Could I have finished 0.7 miles in 6 minutes? Maybe. For the 3 half marathons, my times were between 1:53 and 1:58.

At the Charity Chase I registered a 2:09 something. Could I have run faster? Maybe. More hill training? Maybe. I burnt out pretty quickly. I want to run a half under 1:51 to qualify for a corral for the Chicago marathon, and maybe I started too quickly. But I don't think I could have made enough improvements to break 2 hours given the circumstances.