Three years ago I ran my last half marathon, at the Redmond Watershed in fact, in 1:54:40 which was a PR for me on a trail half. Right after that half I got injured which wouldn’t heal and then I got SIBO which took forever to heal so three years later I was finally ready to run another half marathon. The Watershed was the perfect place to do this since it is one of the easier courses around and doesn’t have too much elevation with only 1100′ of gain, I often do that in a 4-5 mile run at Tiger.
One of my concerns about doing a half or longer is the fueling aspect. After SIBO I try not to snack at all, I eat my three meals a day and rarely eat in between. I figure that I put in enough fat and spend most of my time in ketosis so I should be OK for a half marathon. I did 10 miles with no food and managed to do a few 9-10 mile training runs also with no extra food, just some water. Today I wasn’t taking any chances of bonking though so I carried some calories with me in two forms. One was a Honey Stinger gel, this is tapioca syrup and honey so is about as Paleo as gels can get. The other was a homemade ball that I got from Ben Greenfield’s Beyond Training book and was the closest thing to Paleo I could find. I did a small half recipe that included:
- 2 slices of bacon, fried then crumbled
- 1/2 c. cubed sweet potato that I sautéed in the bacon grease to get more fat and yummy bacon flavor
- 1 t. olive oil
- 1/2 t. salt
- 1/2 t. cumin
- 1 1/2 c. or so of cooked sushi rice
To prep you combine the bacon, sweet potato, oil and spices in a blender and form a paste. Then add that to the rice and make balls out of them which are then baked at 350 for about 15-20 minutes. I cooled them, put them in the fridge and then today wrapped them up in plastic wrap. I tried a few that night just to be sure they were going to settle OK in my gut, it was the first time I’d tried sushi rice which is a bit different from Jasmine rice.
I loaded up my vest with these goodies and two bottles of water and headed to the Watershed early to do registration for the event before changing and getting ready to run. Since I had eaten breakfast at 5:00 am and the run started at 9:35 I did eat a few of the balls around 9:00 just to get a bit of fuel back in my system, I ended up not touching anything during the run itself. I switched into my Luna Oso/Tabu combo with a pair of merino Injinji socks underneath which has been my footwear combo all winter long.
I had planned to run this even fast to go for a PR so started out on the line. The start was fast, I was running with some high school cross country guys who didn’t pull away for about 1/2 mile and then I had the really fast crew start getting ahead of me. The course was a muddy mess from all the rain we’ve been having and luckily it didn’t rain hard for too long during the first lap, just some showers and one good rain but that occurred when I was in the trees so it wasn’t bad. I stayed running the entire first lap even up the hill on the last leg trying to get a buffer on my time. I definitely accomplished that, I hit the turnaround at 52 minutes, on pace for a 1:44 time but I knew I’d slow down a bit on the second lap.
After seeing that time I got a good jolt and kept the pace up for the easy portion of the second lap. That is until I hit some mud badly and tweaked my right hamstring, the last thing I needed. It tightened up big time so I had to stop and walk a bit until I felt like I could run on it but definitely had to slow down at that point so I hydrated well and took it easy. I was about 10 miles in when that happened but only a few people passed me while I was walking. By the time I hit the aid station it was feeling better so I was able to pick up my pace again on the flat and downhill stretches but did slow down on the hill this time, walking a tiny bit on the really steep portions. I was so glad to hit the last .6 mile point and picked it up as best I could on the last leg of the run. I crossed the finish in 1:53:14 for an 18/96 overall finish. My brain wasn’t quite with it and I wasn’t sure I’d set a PR but indeed I had. I didn’t break my record by 10 minutes like I was on track to but I did shave a few more minutes off and considering I walked and had to slow way down I was amazed I was still able to set a PR, I had resigned myself to just finishing at one point.
Next up is the Hawkeye 25k assuming this leg heals up quickly and isn’t going to be another hamstring injury that dogs me for months, luckily just a few days later it feels quite a bit better. The Hawkeye is dead flat compared to what I’m used to running so it should be do-able by April 9th. After that is the next event in the Half Marathon Trail Series at Tiger Mountain on April 16th but I’ll be doing that one rather slowly with 2720′ of elevation gain.