Hangover Half Marathon

Despite drinking wine and eating desserts at the Old English Pub on New Year’s Eve (& staying up until 2AM!) I still had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to run a good race on New Year’s Day!

Every year the Hudson Mohawk Road Runners Club puts on the Winter Series, a series of races that are only $5 to run in. I had decided pretty early that I wanted to run this race to start 2012 off right. Not because its a good race, because the course is horribly boring (and hideous) and there is no crowd support to be found. Its pretty much 13.1 miles of me with my own thoughts and nothing to look at besides the backs of the fast runners lapping me. Yes, there are three laps of the same boring loop for the whole 13.1 miles. Anyway.

That being said, I didn’t really train well for this race, but considering the circumstances I just wanted to wing it! I logged a 10 miler in early december, a few 9 milers and an 8 miler last week, so I think I had enough miles under my belt to be ready for this race.

The race didn’t start until noon, thank God! My friend and running buddy Melissa picked me up and we headed over the SUNY Albany for the run.

I think I overdressed for this race because when we started it was 49 degrees, which is pretty unheard of for this time of the year. It was awesome though because there were sunny skies, which made the race a little bit more tolerable!

The long sleeves were a bit much, a t-shirt would have been perfect! But I dealt with it!

Garmin Stats

Total distance – 13.18 miles

Total Time – 2:08:57

Average Pace – 9:47/mile

Splits

The last 3 miles were pretty tough, my legs just didn’t want to move. I was starting to feel empty and hungry so I stopped at one of the water stations to eat my Vanilla Gu and it was like the best thing I’ve ever tasted at that moment! Unfortunately it didn’t give me the boost of energy in time, but it did fill my stomach up a little bit so I didn’t feel so empty.

After finishing, I waited for Melissa who finished not too far behind! We went inside and recorded our times (no timing chips or bibs here for this race!) and then it was time to get FOOD! Thank goodness they had pizza! It was so good because we were so hungry!

I think running a half marathon was a great way for me to start the new year. 🙂