2014 Hangover Half Marathon

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a fun New Years celebration. Chris and I kept it low key and had some friends over for dinner and drinks. It was nice!

I now have the tradition of running a New Years Day race. Since 2011 I’ve run a version of this. In 2011 I ran the Sober Up 3.5 mile race, in 2012 in ran my first Hangover Half Marathon, last year in 2013 I ran the 3.5 miler, and this year I ran the Hangover Half again.

This time my friend Val ran, too! It was chilly. We were bundled up.

The race starts at noon, so it gave me time to relax with my coffee and an episode of Scandal after sleeping in til about 8:30AM. 😉

It was about 20 degrees at the start, but the sun was shining and it seemed like a nice day! After running the first loop I got kind of hot so I took off my jacket and left it at the turn around point (had a long sleeve underneath) but then the sun went away and it got chilly again. Thankfully I was never too cold!

My stomach was not feeling great during this race. I even considered quitting after about 6 miles in, but decided to suck it up and just keep going. I have this thing about not wanting to quit. My time was decent…I kept about a 9:30 pace for the first 9 miles or so. Then my legs got tired and slow. It would have been smart to take some fuel around mile 7 or 8 but my stomach was not feeling it and I didn’t want to risk it. So I went without the extra calories and slowed down at the end.

Half marathon #12, first race of 2014, done.
Distance 13.1 miles
Time 2:09:43
Average pace 9:45/mile

My goal was to run this race under 2:04, but I slacked on my training the past few weeks. I didn’t eat very well over the holidays either, I think that ultimately lead to a slower race time yesterday.