On November 16 I took part in Ageo half marathon. For the past years I have chosen this day in November as my main race event. First, because it represents the first race I ran in Japan - November's 2005 Toda Marathon. Second, because for some reason there are MANY races on this weekend - to mention one: Tokyo Woman's Marathon. Third, because the weather is always perfect: very cool and usually accompanied with light rain.
It was the first time for me to run this event, not my first time to apply though. Last year I got injured a week before the event and spent that weekend in bed.
Unlike most races that I run without any pressure I had two things in mind here:
- My last serious attempt in a half marathon pb was November 2006 therefore I not only needed to pb, but I needed a pb good enough to cover two years of training.
- I might be running Betsudai Marathon in February and to do so I needed a sub 75 minute half marathon before December to qualify.
I needed a pb and what better place to do it than in Ageo, where maybe 500 of the participants have personal bests under 71 minutes.
The start takes place on the track (imagine over 1000 runners all with fast times starting inside a track – the mess it was) where I had to come to full stops several times. The race continued crowded for the 1st 3km, after that, everything went out smoothly. Surprisingly from this point on I kept on passing people, been passed by perhaps 10 runners throughout the entire race. Following are my splits with some comments:
17.23.03 - 5km
The 1st km split was 3.38 (but considering the stops itwas more like a 3.25). Pretty sure the first 5km were done in a 17.15ish effort.
17.16.80 – (34.39.83 – 10km)
Good even pace trying to keep Brett at sight
17.42.31 – (52.22.14 – 15km)
I am a runner that needs the km marks and after the 10km mark they had them every 3km or so which was not very helpful.
17.38.20 – (1.10.00.34 – 20 km)
Same time as my Takashimadaira 20km result. Began pushing at about 18km.
3.39.88 – last 1.1 km
Total net time: 1.13.39
Ran a good last km in about 3.18 and finished on two legs thinking "this wasn't that hard."
All in all great race. About a minute pb and my legs already feel good.
1 comment:
¡Hola!
Perdón por el retraso en contestar a la pregunta que me dejaste en mi blog. Te pongo el enlace de "Café y Libros", un lugar donde tal vez puedas encontrar gente de habla hispana.
http://www.cafeylibros.com/web/es/es-index.htm
Te deseo mucha suerte, y si necesitas algo más, trataré de ayudarte con mucho gusto (siempre y cuando esté dentro de mis conocimientos)
Un saludo.
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