It was perfect weather in Reno for the
Rock-N-River Half Marathon - 40's in the morning, to a high of 72, light overcast, barely any wind. Unfortunately, that didn't offer me any excuses for not making my goal time of 1:30:00.
The race start was just downtown by the Reno arch, so I rode my bike the mile and a half downhill and parked about half a block away. Got a little warmup jog in, and a few stretches before I found my friend
Amber, who was also running. By that time it was a few minutes away from the start, so we lined up and off we went. Here's the approximate course:
My plan was to go out at about 7 minute miles, then come back in a little faster on the downhill return. I kept pace for about three miles, then slipped back closer to the mid-7's. At the turnaround by the
Patagonia warehouse, I was about 2:30 back of where I'd planned to be. I was meeting another friend, Chris, at mile 8 and he was going to pace me back in, so I hoped I could make a little up. Not long after I met him, though, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to push it much; in fact, I barely held on to the pace. The most I could do was fend off someone trying to catch me in the last quarter mile. Ended up finishing at 1:33:33, good for about 34th place (official results haven't been posted yet.) That's a
half marathon PR for me, by almost 6 minutes. Amber PR'd, too, finishing under 2 hours in 1:58 something. Nice job!
I'm a little disappointed that I didn't make the time I was shooting for, but at least I still have a goal now. And you learn something about yourself each time you race...
A few pics:
I'm the second runner in this shot; I didn't have the energy to chase down the first guy, but was able to hold off the guy behind me. Didn't realize he was so close. The guy in the white long-sleeve shirt to the left is Chris, peeling off so he doesn't go through the gate. Thanks again, Chris -
For some reason, this shirt makes me look pregnant. Gotta stop wearing it to races. Great picture otherwise - nice shot, Mich!
After the race, getting a big hug from Julien and my mom. Note Sofia's crown in the foreground...
The word list was given to contestants before the Bee, and the words in it weren't really that hard. So, only one or two of the seven teams were eliminated with those words. At a certain point, they started pulling words from "Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure and Preposterous Words." These were HARD. In fact, the first one was misspelled by every team but one, so that team were the winners - IGT, the defending champions. I don't even remember what word it was we lost on - I'd never heard of it. Something to do with soil. We then spelled off for second and third place, and promptly were bumped out there, too, on another word no-one had ever heard. It took a few more words to determine second and third, and I could've spelled a few of those, but for the most part, those were unspellable words. Wish there could have been a middle ground between the semi-hard words in the early rounds and the impossible ones. Like "lagniappe." That was one from Mrs. Byrne's dictionary that seemed hard but doable..
