Movie Madness Half Marathon

After looking at the course for the Movie Madness Half Marathon last week, I lowered my expectations.  I drove the course and saw that it was incredibly hilly.  Still, just driving the course didn't give me a true appreciation of just how tough it was.  It was the most difficult course I've ever run.  Although the hills are no where near as steep as Trexler, they never seemed to end.

I wanted to PR or at least run what I did last fall, but there's just no way that would've happened on this course.  When I signed up for the race, I thought this area would be much flatter.  I would've rather have just ran up the nearby mountain and back down it.

I only ran once this week and I started off feeling great.  My legs were well rested from the taper.  I ran fairly hard early on as I was trying to stay near the front.  I knew that the race wouldn't be too competitive.  I was in 5th place overall.  At one point, about a quarter mile into the run, I looked at my watch and I was at a 5:55 pace.  That was WAY too fast, so I slowed it on down a bit.

A couple people passed me early on.  I wasn't going to kill myself to stay ahead of them.  The opening mile slowed down and it was a 6:45 by the end of it.  It was still definitely too fast, but I was at least feeling good.  I wasn't sure if I would have that kind of pace.

There was a huge hill at mile 2 and so began the killer rolling hills.  The lead female passed me at some point here.  The hills got to me, but I was still feeling okay.  I was breathing a little heavy.  I came through the 2nd mile at 7:02.  I knew I still wanted to slow down slightly.

We had already encountered a couple hills, but it got worse and worse.  Part of the problem is that I love hills, but I never train on them with any kind of speed.  It is always just an easy pace.  I couldn't believe how fast I was going.  Mile 3 did slow me up though with a 7:26 mile.

I looked down at my watch at the 5K point and even with mile 3 slowing me, I ran just over 22 minutes.  That was too fast obviously, but great because I didn't even know I had that speed.  I had hoped that I did, but I wasn't sure.  I ran almost a minute slower than that in a 5K in March.

One of the reasons I did go too fast is that I was hoping to have someone to run with.  There was a guy that had passed me wearing a Rocky robe (since it was a movie themed race).  I was hoping he might be able to pull me along.  Eventually, I let him go, but he didn't leave my sights.

Mile 4 was tough like every other mile of this run.  There was so much long, seemingly never ending hills in this area.  We were on the main road in the area, mostly going by farms and a few houses.  There were a couple people out cheering, but most of the course was quite lonely.  The 4th mile was a 7:23.  I was definitely slipping a bit.

There was a little bit of a hill as we turned off the main road.  I was relieved to turn off that road.  Of course the first thing we saw after that was a gradual uphill and another steep hill.  When I saw that hill, I just got frustrated.  I decided at that point that I was going be nowhere near the time I hoped and the hills in the 2nd half could kill me, so I'd back off.  I just figured that I might as well turn it into a training run and try to save my legs.  This isn't a goal race and I want to jump back into marathon training and focus on that.  I don't need to destroy my body on a half marathon.

I was breathing hard in the first 5K, but once I shut it off, I felt kind of comfortable.  As comfortable as one can feel going up hill after hill.  The funny thing was with all the hills, the worst was probably still yet to come.

On one of the steeper uphill near mile 5.  The Rocky guy began to walk up it and adjust his robe.  I ran by him.  He caught back up after that.  We went back and forth a bit in this section.  We chatted a little, mostly about how much the course was sucking.

Mile 5 was 8 minutes flat (that might be the only time flat will be used in this post).  From this point on, at least my miles were pretty consistent.  I was just taking it easy.  My legs actually still felt alright.  The next section was perhaps the most frustrating part.  It was a hill of course, but it was also a gravel road that had no grip.  I slipped and slide as I made my way up the hill.  I tried to find parts of the road that were in better condition.  I didn't have much luck.

I saw my dad at the cemetery at the top of the hill.  That might've been good if I was still actually racing at this point.  He gave me a GU gel, even though I probably wasn't working hard enough to need it.

There was a nice downhill as we approached the turnaround.  As I had told the Rocky guy, the problem is that any of these downhills now were just another uphill on the way back.  I knew we still had plenty of those to come.

It was good to turnaround.  I was happy that I could run downhill on the gravel road this time.  Passing all the runners coming back was somewhat encouraging.  Since I wasn't pushing that hard, I said "thanks" when they said kind words to me.

I was ahead of the Rocky guy at the turnaround, but I guess he got a second wind then.  He decided to fly by me shortly after that.  I told him that I've run a marathon faster than the current pace (just 7 miles into this race).  I still kept him in my sights as he pulled ahead.  These couple hills here were very steep on the way back.  I was so beat going up them.

I was in 13th place at this point and we were so strung out that I knew even with how slow I was going, I wouldn't be passed very often.  I ran a lot of this part on my own.  It was lonely running and of course more hills.  The frustrating thing about it was that there never seemed to be a better section to run.  It was all up and down, up and down.  Getting into any kind of rhythm was impossible.

Back on the main road, it was more of the same.  I passed the Rocky guy again.  This time, I knew it was for good.  He was starting to breath heavy and I wasn't.  I was just sort of on cruise control.  I knew there would be no way that he'd come back on me.  Right before I passed him, I said something and I guess he didn't hear me because he had headphones on (I couldn't tell because of the robe on his head).  I startled him when I went by a short time later. 

I was happy to make it to mile 9.  Somewhere around this point I looked back to see where the Rocky guy was at and I saw another guy coming up.  I knew that he would eventually get me too.  He did somewhere around the 10 mile point.

As I hit double digits, I was starting to get a little sore.  There was one interesting incident around this time.  They had blocked off a road crossing and I guess some hotshot on a motorcycle didn't like it so he drove through the roadblock and then sped up to about 60-70 MPH on this country road.  I yelled at him to slow down.  I wasn't concerned for myself, but the pack of runners that were behind me.  I guess there wasn't an issue.  Thank God, he could've killed someone.

Some time after mile 11, my left big toe started bothering me.  I guess that pushing off on all the uphill took its toll.  My quads were definitely feeling the brunt of all these hills by now too.  I couldn't wait to get through the last 2 miles and be done.  I noticed that my GPS was actually about a tenth of a mile ahead of their course mile markers.  That was so much better than being behind.

As I was nearing the turn onto the road to the casino, I knew another guy was coming.  I just didn't have the energy or desire to fight him off when he did come to me.  There was still one killer uphill on this road.  It was good to be over it, but I didn't actually know if there were any other hills or not.

I could see the light posts from the horse racing track.  That was kind of encouraging.  For about the final mile and a quarter, I saw that I would be just over a 1:40 finishing time.  I didn't even have the desire to kill myself and try to go under it.  Perhaps I could've, but it wouldn't been tough.  Although I ran much easier, that didn't save my legs a lot.  They were still quite beat up from the hills.

I was passed inside the final mile.  Even if I wanted to try to battle that guy, I couldn't.  He was just flying.  I looked back and saw that I had a good gap to the next guy.  At least a lot of the final mile was flat.

We entered the road into the casino and track.  That was a nice downhill and it was good to see the finish.  Of course, there was still a short uphill to go.  I just cruised in.  Some people were cheering at the finish, but I wasn't really happy enough to acknowledge them.  I probably should've.  I came it at just under 1:41.

I wasn't quite sure what kind of shape I was in, but never imagined that I could run anything slower than 1:40, regardless of the course.  Of course, I didn't anticipate the course being this hard either.  I did go out too fast, but even if I didn't, I doubt I could've done any better than a 1:38.  On a flat course, I'm confident that I would've run at least a 1:35, maybe better.  I don't quite have the ability to hold a fast pace for quite that long, so guessing a time would be tough.  I did feel awesome though and the weather was actually perfect.  What a shame.

What bothers me more than anything about the hills is that they made it so challenging on a race that is supposed to be a fun movie themed style.  I was talking to a woman in the bathroom line and she said this was her first half marathon and that she had only trained up to 9 miles.  This route absolutely must've killed her and others like her.  I was actually surprised that I didn't come across more people walking.  I guess that is because when I saw them, they were still in the first half of the run.

Even though I tried to save my legs, they still got quite beat up.  I'm very sore.  I went to the casino with my parents and at least my mom had fun playing the slots and we ate at the buffet.  It wasn't a totally wasted trip.  Had I know this course would be so hard, I would've ran the easier race of the two spring half marathons that I was looking at.

I was amazed at how competitive my 30-35 age group was.  I was 14th overall, 13th male and didn't even win an award.  Of the 12 guys ahead of me, 5 were in my age group.  I was kind of happy because the award ceremony apparently wasn't starting until an hour after we left.

I'm glad that at least all the resting I did seemed to help.  My legs were so fresh.  Hopefully I can get them to stay that way and still run a lot.  I'm not looking to increase my mileage, but I would like to put in 50+ mile weeks through the rest of the summer.  We also had to stop at bathrooms several times on the way out and I'm glad that I had no issues of those sorts during the race.

I thought about going to Jennie's Trexler run tomorrow, but I think I'm just too sore.  Even walking all the hills, it would still be very difficult.  I'll probably rest tomorrow and Monday.  On Monday, I am getting a massage.  Hopefully that will help my legs recover.  I won't run that day either and I'll take it easy on my Tuesday run.  Going forward, I need 20+ miler and faster speedwork sessions.  Those will be my main weekly focus.

13.1 miles - 1:40:51 (7:42)