Race Report: Rochester Half Marathon

Yesterday I ran the Rochester Half Marathon with my good friend D. After running Boilermaker together in July, D decided she wanted to do a half marathon. "It's only 4 more miles" :)

We had no time goals for this race. My plan was to stay with her the whole way. I wanted to work on running through the water stops. I have a tendency to linger and walk more than I need to at water stops. If I'm going to get under 2 hours in Toronto I need to work on this. 

The race started at 7:45am so we woke up around 6am to eat and get ready. I had half of a muffin and a plum. I wasn't as prepared with breakfast as usual. 

We got to the chip pickup (at a baseball field) around 7am. Parking was a breeze as we the chip pickup. We spent a few minutes looking for a friend, J, we were meeting (another first timer!). Once we found her we headed to the bathrooms in the baseball field so that we didn't have to worry about porta potties at the Start.

The start line was about a half a mile away so we walked there, got rid of our long sleeve shirts, and lined up for the start. The full started 15 minutes before the half and even though the full started late, the half started pretty much right on time. We were off and feeling good. We started a little too far back and had to pass some walkers. It was pretty congested through mile 1 but it quickly thinned out. 

Around 1.5 miles into the race I started getting a side stitch. My guess is from my less than perfect breakfast. It didn't slow down our pace (around a 10 min/mile) but I really had to focus on my breathing and could talk much. My side stitches are always exacerbated my downhills so I just hoped an uphill was in our future (even though I did this race last year I didn't remember an awful lot about the course, and at 90 degrees last year everything seemed to suck much more than it did this year). Around mile 3 we got a mice steady uphill where I could kick my side stitch. I still felt it until about mile 5 but it was much less intense. 

We were averaged about a 10 min/mile the whole first half of the race. It was pretty hilly but we slowed down on the uphills and cruised our way downhill. At halfway D and J wanted to stop and stretch for a minute. I took this time to eat a GU (yes, I've been trying GUs lately, more on this in another post). At this point we went into a park that was pretty flat with just little ups and downs. D started to struggle a bit and J was still feeling good.

A little after mile 7 J pulled ahead of us and D and I continued on. She was really hurting and we stopped for walk and stretch breaks frequently. I tried to talk as much as possible because she told me it help her take her mind off the pain. I told her stories about other races and runs and initial plans I had for the spring. Her fiance was biking around the course taking pictures of us. We saw him every mile or so from mile 7 to the end so it was nice to have someone cheering for us.

Around mile 9 my foot started to hurt. I have been getting occasional plantar fasciitis pain in my right foot on long runs. I figured it was my shoes but I only have 300 miles on them and the owner of my running store told me 300 wasn't enough for a new pair. 

We continued on at a slow pace for the rest of the run. D was hurting a lot and was frustrated but I just kept trying to be positive and tell her how there was a nice medal waiting for her at the end, along with food, and chocolate milk. We made it to the finish with a time of 2:25:42. This is my slowest half to date but I really didn't care. It was all about D having finishing and half a good experience. J was waiting for us at the finish line. Her time was around 2:12 and she was feeling good. My boyfriend and D's fiance were also waiting for us so we met up with them, got food, and found a spot to stretch and relax. 

I immediately took off my shoes (Niek Pegasus 25+) because my foot was still killing me. I looked at the bottom of my shoes and noticed the treads on the ball of my right shoe are almost gone. I'm guessing this is accounting for all the pain. I guess it's time for new shoes! Good thing I have two pairs of "new" shoes at home. A couple weeks back my running store had a sidewalk sale to get rid of the older shoe models they still had. I picked up a pair of Brooks Radius 7 (my first and still favorite pair of running shoes) and Saucony Triumph 4. I also got a pair of Nike Pegasus 25+ Trail so I can wear them for snowy winter runs. Today I am wearing the Brooks Radius around the office. I'm hoping to break them in by Sunday so I can run in them for the PDR. I really don't want to run with foot pain again.

All in all I felt great during the race yesterday. The foot pain didn't hurt enough to change my gait and I know I could have run a lot faster. I wouldn't have PRed but that's why I'm running races before my goal race, to work out the kinks.

Today I am feeling pretty good. My hip flexors are tight but that's about it. I do feel a little soreness in my foot but not much. I am coaching tonight and I'm going to run in the new Brooks. 

The plan for this week is to run enough to break in my shoes but not enough to kill me for the PDR this Sunday. I am running this race with a friend from Buffalo so we are heading down to Philly on Friday night. I'm not sure what my goals are for this race yet. It will really depend on how this week goes.