Luke - 13.5

Rogue Run Half Marathon, 1:14:02, 1st place.

Zack and I traveled down to Southern Oregon on Saturday, about 3 hours from Eugene, along with Zack's girlfriend Erin and her dog Matilda. Picked up our packets in Medford real quick then headed to Ashland, where we walked around and picked up a pizza, then drove to Emigrant Lake where we would be camping for the night. We set up our tents and then ate pizza, played cards, and listened to the Oregon game on a portable radio. Didn't get to bed until almost 11. Right about the time we were all falling asleep we heard noises outside our tent; Zack thought it was me, I thought it was Matilda, and we got no response when Zack shined a flashlight and called out from inside the tent...so Zack went out and saw a couple big raccoons and Matilda chased them up a tree. Zack put away the dog food and stuff and we all went back to bed.

We woke up just before 6 and it was raining--it hadn't rained in over a month but today's forecast was for rain all day. We got everything packed up and left right when we'd planned, at 6:45. Erin drove us to the start while we had a little bit of food and pinned our numbers on and all that stuff. I had four gels, each with 40mg of caffeine, and I think that's all I ate before the race. By the time we got there, the rain had stopped, and the weather actually ended up being great until about halfway into the drive home. We were a bit early so we sat in the car for a bit, and then I jogged around a tiny amount and headed for the bathroom, then went straight to the start about ten minutes before go-time. They had lines on the ground before the start for people to line up behind according to their projected pace: 5:xx, 6:xx, etc. I stood up near the front and there was no one around. There were maybe a dozen people in front of the nine-minute pace line, so it looked like it'd be pretty back-heavy. Did talk to a couple people at the start, one guy that finished just in front of Zack at his last 10k who had a PR of about 1:21:high, a guy from right near Eugene who is pretty good and had a Eugene Running Company jersey on, and a guy with a Rogue Valley Runners jersey who looked fast (RVR has some real fast runners).

At the start I took off with the RVR guy, trying to stay relaxed. I asked him if he had a goal pace and he said he was going to start at about 6:00s and see how it felt. He asked me my goal and I said about 75, and at that point I was already pulling away a bit. I was on my own in front after just a couple minutes and I tried to settle into a pace I thought I could maybe keep up for 13 miles. I passed the first mile marker at 5:01 and said "Holy shit!" and then thought, okay, yeah, there's no way that's right. Zack said he was with someone with a GPS watch who said it was like 25 seconds short, so I'm guessing I was somewhere between 5:22 and 5:30. My A goal pace was 5:35, so it was a bit fast, but really I was just going by feel. Second mile was 5:33, but really with all these I don't know how accurate the marks were...I think my pace for the first ~5 miles anyway was pretty even. Was running by myself this whole time, and hit the next three miles in 5:26, 5:28, and 5:24, feeling pretty good. Wasn't sure if the mile markers were accurate or what, so I was thinking I could either finish at like 1:11:30 or they could "make up" the short miles at the end and I'd end up anywhere between 1:13 and 1:17. The next few miles had a couple rollers, and I was definitely working harder but still feeling pretty good. Splits 6-10 were 5:35, 5:19, 5:53, 5:04, and 5:45...obviously something was up with the markers. The other weird thing was that at the water stations they said that the first table at each station would be water and the second table would be electrolyte/sports drink...I figured it would be a Gatorade knockoff, but when I took some at about mile 6½ I got water and then what they said was electrolyte drink, but which was clear and tasted like water, with maybe a slightly salty aftertaste...I figured I'd just been handed water both times, but then at miles ~9 and ~10 I had the exact same experience...I don't know what the stuff was or if it had the same effect on me as a normal sports drink would have.

Anyway my plan was to run the first ten miles "strong" and then at the tenth mile marker I would "really go"...so when I hit the mile marker I picked it up and really tried to push, and definitely felt faster, but my split was 6:12. When I started the mile I'd hoped my time at eleven miles would be under an hour so that I could maybe break 1:12 (which would be insanely fast) but it was instead 60:44. I figured the split was long, of course, and kept pushing, and my next mile was 6:38. I was really hurting by the end of that mile, but I'm definitely guessing that was a "make-up" length for one of the earlier miles being short. My thirteenth mile I do think I slowed down, and it was 6:05. The last .1 was 34 seconds or so (I didn't hit my watch until after the finish line) for a total time of 1:14:02. I got my chip clipped off my shoe and got handed a dog-tag style medal, and by the time I turned around the Rogue Valley Runner guy was finishing, a few seconds in front of the Eugene Running Company guy. Turns out I'd only beaten them by 26 and 33 seconds! I probably had that much on them in the first two miles...anyway I'm really glad I was able to hold them off...that would have been pretty awful if one or both had gotten me at the line or something.

After that I pretty much went straight to the beer garden for my free pint of Caldera Amber. I actually kept my watch going so I know that I got my beer at about 1:16:30 and had it finished before 1:19, which I think is pretty good for a half-marathon and a pint.

Zack finished very well at 1:23:05, and I had another beer while he had his and then we waited around for a while for the awards. For what I consider my best win yet, I got what I consider my best prize yet: a free pair of Brooks running shoes from the local running store, and a fairly nice bottle of wine from one of the local breweries. The coupon for the shoes was comically large, like the giant checks they give out at golf tournaments (not that big, but still hefty). I talked to one of the race administrators and asked if the place was open today, and she said yes and gave me directions, so we went straight there, and it was closed, and is apparently always closed on Sundays. I'm pretty sure the lady I was talking to worked there, so that was a bit weird. I guess I'll give the place a call tomorrow and see if they can ship me a pair, otherwise I'll just hang onto it until next time I need to drive South.

After being disappointed by the shoe store we headed out to find lunch, and ended up stopping at a diner in Phoenix, Oregon, a crappy suburb of Medford. We had one of the worst brunches I've ever witnessed...the service was amazingly bad, and the food was probably even worse. Zack's food was somewhat okay, but Erin and I both felt sick afterward, her for a little while and me pretty much the rest of the day. I sat in the back seat on the way home and tried to sleep, and we got home a little before 5:00, somehow the whole trip taking less than 27 hours.