Whistlestop Half-Marathon

Last weekend I ran in the Whistlestop half-marathon. Training had been going very well, I had been running some speedy (for me) trail races and the weather cleared and seemed perfect for setting a PR. I had a goal to finish under 2 hours. I knew that I could do that as I have run every other half-marathon in 2 hours or less.

I am a 1:58 half-marathoner. Four half-marathons. All run in 1:58. Amazingly consistent.

Actually I started out running closer to a 8:30 min/mile pace (1:51 half) and kept that up for 9 - 10 miles when my legs started tightening up in back and the blisters I had been ignoring since mile 3 conspired to slow me down. If I were to do a half again I think I would ignore the advice and do longer training runs. I topped out at 10 miles and think I need to do longer runs.

Most of my training was done on the Superior Hiking Trail in Duluth with one foray up the North Shore to run a (turned out to be steep as heck) nine mile section. I figured the hilly trail running was good for strength and the weekly 90 minute soccer games were my speed work.

Oh yeah, soccer. So after running 13.1 miles Saturday I did go ahead and play 90 minutes of soccer on Sunday. It actually was a good way to work out some of the stiffness. Bandaid makes a blister pad that worked really well to protect the 1.5 cm blood blister on my left foot.

After all of that I have felt pretty justified in taking the rest of the week off from running. That and the rain helped my decision making.

So all this extra time on my hands now that I am not training has been pretty good for my knitting. Finishing up some socks. Finished hats for the Mitten Tree at work. Started a scarf for work but ran into an allergy issue with it (donater has cats) and have set it aside for now. I've been asked to contribute something for the Silent Auction at church so need to look throught my stash and see what wants to be knit up in two weeks ;->

Any suggestion??