Running with Eric

On Saturday morning I ran the Grand Island Half Marathon, and was a bit slow finishing 24 seconds over the two hour mark. This was a real disappointment finishing six minutes slower than last week.

The race started out well enough, sticking with the 1:50 pace group through the opening five and a half miles. I passed the half way mark at 56 minutes, on track for a two minute improvement over last week. Things started to slow down around mile nine, although I didn’t realize how bad things had gotten until the two hour pace leader caught up half a mile from the finish. (Ultimately I pulled ahead of him, but he was a minute off pace.)

I had a similar problem running this race two years ago in that I was inexplicably slower than I had been the previous weekend at Flower City. And this is despite the flatter Grand Island course being a theoretically easier place to run.

I have a quick turn around for my next race as the Dirt Cheap Trail Series is running in Durand Eastman Park on Wednesday night.

On Saturday I ran the Grand Island Half Marathon. I finished in 1:50:36 which is two minutes slower than I was last week. Still it is the second fastest half that I have ever ran.

My main problem in this race is that I started way too fast. I finished the first 5k in 23:42 which was almost a minute ahead of where I should have been. Yet despite the fast start, at the turn-around I was already a minute behind my pace from last week, and just continued to fade from there.

I finished the race in 112th place, which puts me just outside of the top third of all finishers in the race. My next race will be the Dirt Cheap Race in Black Creek Park.