American Discovery Trail 1/2 Marathon

I raced my final race today before Ironman World Championships in Hawaii next month. This was a test to see where I am with my running. The number one goal was to run a sub 1:20. After last months sub one hour 10 miler, I thought this was doable. The race was less than 20 minutes from the house so it made it easy logistically. I got there early to make sure I got a parking spot in a nearby lot and just read the newspaper until 5 minutes before race time. I quickly lined up on the front row then got ready to go. I wanted to go out controlled the first mile. The course has some gradual downhill that makes it pretty easy to do something stupid like go too hard. I wanted to go out smart because I had gone a bit to fast the first 2 miles of the 10 miler and felt it hurt me with my overall time. The race started and I was immediately in the front. I felt like I was holding back but wasn't quite sure as I was in the lead which is something I'm definitely not used to. I came through the first mile in 6:11. I wasn't looking at my splits on the watch as I came through the early miles. This was a conscious decision as I tend to get caught up in the pace. This causes me to tense up and end up going slower. I planned to check my splits at 6 miles to see where I was. I continued on in the lead until mile 3. At that point, a runner came up on me and sat a step behind me for the next mile. After that, he came alongside me. I found myself racing now instead of just running a nice consistent pace. When he would pick it up, I'd match his pace. This would end up hurting my overall time. I had no intention of doing this but then again, I had no idea I would have a chance to win. There aren't a lot of opportunities like that for this old fart so racing became the priority. At mile 6, I checked my split and it showed 37:02. That meant I was 26 seconds behind the pace I needed to get my sub 1:20. I still felt really good so I felt I could bump up the pace a little to go for my goal. We ran the next 2 miles in 12:05. There was a short downhill in that general area and I picked up about 3 seconds on my competition. From that point on, I just gradually pulled away from him. I came through the next 2 miles in 12:04.

At this point, I was 5k from the finish and was confident I would win so the main goal was to get that sub 1:20. The next mile was 5:56 and I had to work harder than I wanted to get it. Those early mini surges to match pace with the competition was starting to have a negative impact on how I was feeling. The next mile was 6:18. Ouch. I would have to dig deep to get this PR. Mile 13 was a 5:48 with a sprint to the final .1 (probably not much of one as I was pretty tired) to the finish to get my time of 1:19:50. This was a PR by well over 3 minutes. I ended up with my goal time AND the win. I am excited to get both but most excited with where my run is going into Kona.

Click here for a link of my post race comments.http://pikespeaksports.us/video/neal-oseland-of-colorado