Leavenworth Half Marathon race report

Whew, long time since I last blogged! So we did the Leavenworth Oktoberfest Half Marathon on Saturday...what a great day! It was about a "C" race for both Seujan and I, but turned out to be one of the most enjoyable and best races I've done (and she hammered out a damn impressive time for not really training!). It was dang cold when the race started, but the sun burned through the fog about 3 miles in and the fall colors, mountain background, and blue sky made for excellent conditions. In the middle, there was about 1.5 miles on a wooded trail near the river and during that stretch, I decided it's time for me to do more trail running this fall.

I tried to go out super slow to warm up for a mile, especially since the first 2+ miles were mostly uphill, but it didn't really happen--too many people I knew were taking off and it felt fine to start at a regular pace. What ended up happening was that I kept what felt like a pretty consistent effort throughout and tried to kick it in during the last mile...I'm still trying to figure out how best to "attack" a half marathon and what works best, but this one went really well, so I'll try to do something similar for the Seattle Half next month.

I experimented with a GU in the last 2 miles and perhaps I don't hate them as much as I thought...and I used the aid stations (Gleukos, which maybe I also don't hate afterall) on the course and didn't carry anything. I also wore a HR monitor this time just to look at the numbers afterwards.

The whole weekend was really fun. We rented a cabin with friends about 20 miles out of town and driving back and forth (did I mention our friend, Cathie, let us borrow her tiny fast Audi convertible on race morning so she could sleep in? Whew, FUN) was great with all the trees in full fall color. We went to the Oktoberfest beer garden later in the day. The beer choices were very disappointing (yucky beer at Oktoberfest, big bummer), but we hung out in the sun and our friend with uber-mojo worked the crowd a bit and kept us entertained.

Stats/splits per mile:

1: 8:55, Avg HR = 166
2: 9:33, 161
3: 9:27, 145
4: 8:39, 143
5: 9:15, 148
6: 9:09, 146
7: 9:05, 149
8: 9:49, 148
9: 9:40, 153
10: 8:27, 150
11 and 12: 18:27, 153 (missed a mile marker)
13.1: 9:21: 163

Total time: 1:59:55
HR Avg: 152