Strawberry Plains 1/2 Marathon Recap

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I had good intentions to get this post up earlier, but you know, life happened. 

Anyway, as a last minute thought, I signed up for the Strawberry Plains 1/2 Marathon, which is about 30 minutes from my home. 

After signing up I read more in detail about the course...which ended up being full  of rolling hills. Ack!

Anyway, it was colder than I would have liked it to be that morning and from the minute I got out of my car and through to mile 3 (last chance to turn around and do 10k) I seriously contemplated only doing the 10k, but that bling is such an incentive for me. There was no bling for the 10k. 

I did not enjoy this race much at all. Between the hills and being cold, I was fairly miserable. At mile 8, I was so ready to be done and a lot of my 1:1 intervals changed to longer walking/recovery intervals. 

While I know my competition is the person in the mirror, I can't help but feel competition with the people who have been running near me during the majority of the race. In this race in particular, quite a few people passed me during the last 2 miles, which was frustrating for me to watch. I was struggling with recovery and being able to run my full 1 minute intervals. Ugh!!

Anyway, all that to say, I finished with an 11 minute PR and while that is exciting, I also realize that my initial half marathon times are SOOO slow because I weigh quite a bit less now and I feel like my training is much better these days. For me, it will be interesting to see how my times come in this year with the races I plan to do.

One obvious note of improvement for me is that I was only sore the remainder of the day Saturday and by Sunday was feeling just about normal...when I ran the Santa Hustle in December, I was sore for 2-3 days!!!