I woke up on Saturday feeling excited and a little nervous. I was more worried about the cold as it was around 28-30 degrees when I woke up. The week prior had been a gorgeous 60 degrees. So I had not trained in colder weather and I was nervous about what I should wear.
I ended up wearing:
I thought I'd end up shedding the jacket but it was just too cold and I ended up being very comfortable with it on.
The week before the race I started becoming very nervous about the hills. I had trained on some hills but I was not sure I had done enough. Luckily they ended up not being so bad. I tried to not focus on them and instead would pick runners near me that I wanted to pass. It became a fun game and with every runner I passed the more confident I became and the faster the miles went by.
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Greensboro Half Marathon Elevation Map |
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Race Map |
My goal going into the race was to finish in 2 hours 15 minutes. Which would be a pace of about 10 minutes 18 seconds per mile. Which was very reasonable from my training and gave some extra time for the hills.
I ended up finishing in 2 hours 6 minutes and 43 seconds! I was super proud of that finish. I did have a secret dream of doing it in 2 hours but hey this was my first and you always have to have goals. Plus the hills definitley were a factor. Although I will say I did a pretty good job of keeping a consistent pace even with the hills.
According MapMyRun my race splits were:
Distance |
Pace |
1 Mile |
09:37 min/mi |
2 Mile |
09:38 min/mi |
3 Mile |
09:42 min/mi |
4 Mile |
09:50 min/mi |
5 Mile |
09:24 min/mi |
6 Mile |
09:12 min/mi |
7 Mile |
09:31 min/mi |
8 Mile |
09:16 min/mi |
9 Mile |
09:29 min/mi |
10 Mile |
09:43 min/mi |
11 Mile |
09:44 min/mi |
12 Mile |
09:47 min/mi |
13 Mile |
09:37 min/mi |
13.3 Mile |
08:20 min/mi |
One of my favorite parts of the race was having my family there to cheer me on. My In-laws were visiting and came a day early so they could make the race. That meant a lot to me. My husband and daughter were of course there. I saw them at the start, around mile 6 and at the finish. Most of the pictures were taken by my husband.
I was also surprised at the finish line by my boss and his daughter. I veered over and gave him a high five right before crossing the finish line. It felt awesome to have all the support.
A highlight for me was around mile 7. I was running along when all of
a sudden I was passed by the winner of the marathon who was followed by
a cop car. For him it was around mile 20. It was so cool seeing him fly
by doing twice the distance I was doing. The marathoners started 45
minutes before the half marathoners. He won the race doing the 26.2
miles in 2 hours 30 minutes 30 seconds! It was amazing to watch the
elite runners. Eight Marathoners finished in under 3 hours.
The winner of the half marathon finished it in 1 hour 12 minutes.
I have to say it was a pretty perfect experience. All my training paid off as I had no problems completing the distance. I felt great the whole time. I was able to beat my original goal. I had a great cheering team. The weather was cold but ended up being a nice temperature for racing once I got going. The event had a lot of wonderful volunteers. I'm so glad I committed to doing this.
Here were my finial results:
Finish percentile is top 41%
Age group percentile is top 37%
What's next? I'm thinking the Inaugural
Rock 'n' Roll Raleigh Half Marathon with a goal of 2 hours :)