This was a Half Marathon run at the Ft De Soto Park
at the most southern tip of Pinellas County, Florida (Tampa Bay area). The official name for this event is the "Florida Beach Halfathon". The park itself is mostly known for some
awesome beaches – they really are spectacular.
The course ran mostly on a cement recreational trail with a little bit
through a parking lot, thereby negating the need to close off streets. Best off
all, it was pancake flat.
643 runners toed the starting line for the HM. I managed to finish 190th overall
and 9th out of 22 in my gender age group with a 1:57:54 chip time
(9:00 min/mile pace). Given some recent
challenges, my goal was mostly to just cross the finish line, but I was
realistically hoping for anything less than a 2:11:00 finish (that’s a 10:00
min/mile pace…).
But I need to back up a bit…. Six months ago my doc labeled me as
“pre-diabetic”, i.e. my A1c was 6.2 at my last blood draw, and I put myself on
severe carb and sugar restrictions. This
of course totally whacked my ability to run; I wasn’t able to run a mile
without stopping to walk. I had no juice. I dropped out of 3 HM’s that I had
hoped to run this season – how could I run them if I couldn’t even go 3 miles?
Long story short: I met with a nutritionist/dietitian who schooled me on my
diet, particularly in consideration of my desired physical activities (I’ll
probably discuss all this after my next blood draw and I have some quantifiable
data as to the results or effects, if any, of my diet). In addition to my diet
issue, I was also working on rehabbing a piriformis muscle pull (see earlier
post – good fun!), and while much better, has continued to linger. But with the
Florida running season coming to a close, I really wanted to run a HM and this
particular event was the last one within a reasonable driving distance. So I
signed up realizing that it may not be a memorable run, but at least I would
give it a go.
I made an effort to properly prep for this event – I ran as
many long runs as I could fit into my schedule topping out at a 14 miler. I was
hoping to condition my legs (and my piriformis muscle) to the distance and
train my body to run with a lower carb intake. The latter was the hardest. My
legs were fine, but my energy levels sucked. As a result, my pace was nothing
short of horrible. On my last 14 mile run, I averaged a 10:10min/mile pace…
thus my low expectations.
The day before the event, instead of “carb loading” as I
have done for previous distance events, I simply substituted fresh baked white
bread for a sandwich (I’d been on whole wheat or multi-grain, i.e. complex
carbs) and had pita bread with dinner… nothing crazy… On race day morning, at 4AM I had a
hardboiled egg and a peanut butter sandwich on white bread. I got there early enough to loosen up and
stretch. An hour prior to the start I took 3 Speed Legs tablets, and then 30
minutes prior, downed a 5hr Energy shot. I hit the port-a-potty, ran some
sprints to warm up, did the usual shoe lace tightening – loosening thing, found
a spot in the back of the starting area and sat down to wait for the start. I
was ready.

I anticipated that my first mile to be slow, somewhere in
the 10min/mile range, but with all the hype and the perfect temperature (it was
high 50’s) I ran it in 9:24. Mile 2 was 9:19. The next 10 miles were all sub 9
minute miles (8:41 to 8:57).


Ok – that that was fun and it was great… What’s next? With Florida summer soon upon
us, distance events are rare. We have some 10K’s and I’d like to sign up for
some. More importantly, I am anxiously waiting for my blood test results to see
if my diet efforts have had an effect on my blood sugar levels. That is really
what is next….
No comments:
Post a Comment