13.1

So I just ran the America's Finest City Half Marathon.  The goal was to break 2 hours.  While my tracker on my phone put me at 1:58:19 for a total distance of 13.3 (unless you follow the ideal run line, you will always be running a little bit further than the official distance), my official time was:

2:00:04

So close!  I probably would have made it below 2 hours if I hadn't had to go to the bathroom the last couple of miles.  Yeah, there were portapotties at the 10.2 mile marker and I could have gone then, but going to the bathroom would have definitely slowed me down even further.  Now, I went before I left the house and I went again before the race started, but the body seemed to think the third time would be the charm.

The path of the AFC starts at Point Loma at the Cabrillo National Monument, heads down along the Bay by the airport and marina, then up into Balboa Park.  Thankfully for my goal, the first few miles are downhill so I could put some quick miles in early to keep my average pace up and get to the end in 2.  That said, the 11 - 12 mile stretch is all uphill.  It's not horrendously bad (only about 200 feet over a mile), but combined with my guts doing everything they could to get me to pay attention to them, it was what killed me.

My pace the past couple of weeks has also been a bit off.  I started truly training for it back in May and my pace was usually around 7 mph, even for my 10+ runs.  That's good for 1:54 final time and I have run the full distance at 1:56 in training.  But the past couple weeks, I've been huffing it at 6.8 or worse and to do my distance at 2 hours requires 6.7.  Everybody said the adrenaline will push you along and I think there might have been a bit of that, but I'm a little sad I didn't do better.

But after all is said and done, I'm happy I did it.  I pretty much hit my goal and the thought of doing the Triple Crown (Carlsbad, La Jolla, and AFC in a single year) is going through my head, but I certainly don't have a full marathon in me right now.  I'd want some pro training if I were going to do that.

It's a good run and the weather was great:  Cool morning, overcast, the sun didn't start beating down until the end, and San Diego is a beautiful city.