Marine Corps Historic Half, part 2

In the days leading up to the half, all forecasts had the race starting out at about 75F, high humidity, sunny sky, and temps rising relatively quickly. Mercifully, not only were the temps a touch cooler (about 72F), but it was a mostly cloudy day -- the sun didn't really peak out until about 2.5 hours into the race, so the temps didn't rise much. While the conditions were far from ideal, they were certainly better than they could have been.

In the few minutes before the gun went off, in between the various announcements, I advised the people around me who had indicated their desire to hit my goal time (1 hour 45 minutes) of several things:

1) If this time was at all a stretch goal, they should drop back to the next pace group (2 hours), given the heat. This was NOT a day where anyone should be attempting any semblance of a PR.

2) Make sure to drink liquids (water and/or Gatorade) early and often.

3) Make sure to douse themselves with at least one cup of water at EVERY single water station. 

The Historic Half has a wicked reputation for its course profile -- mostly because of Hospital Hill, which is actually two steep hills late in the race (about Miles 10.5-11 and 11.5-11.75). Having long, steep hills that late means that for anyone trying to do an "even effort" (which is what I do when pacing) has one not only going pretty well faster than average pace on the downhills, slightly faster than average on flat and slight uphill portions, and quite a bit slower on the steeper inclines. But with the major inclines happening so late, there is little distance with which to make up time if too much was "given up" on the inclines. Being able to run a careful "positive split" is tricky. Even moreso for someone (like me) who has never run this particular race before. My split times were almost exactly what I was planning (slightly faster than what my pace band was telling me for the first 10 miles), only with Mile 2 being about 10 seconds faster than desired. But despite Mile 9 being flat, I unwittingly lost a chunk of time there.

Unfortunately, none of the people in my pack were with me (let alone broke away in front of me) at the finish line. As far as I can tell, all of them wound up trailing off someone around ½ - ⅔ of the way through the race, prior to hitting Hospital Hill. It's always mildly depressing crossing the finish line precisely on pace but not having any of your pace group still with you.

Always nice to have a spinner medal:

In the end, my final results:

 

Certainly recommend running this race for anyone who likes half marathons. The Marines put on a good show, and this lives up to the Marine reputation of making sure you have a challenge ahead of you to complete the race (just like the 17.75k and the marathon both have their own distinct, sizable challenges inherent in the respetive races).