Last-Minute Pacing Gig

Side benefit to always training for the next marathon? (And having that next one be just over 3 weeks away?) Being ready to step in last-minute to fill a hole in a pacing lineup.

Last Monday, I saw a message about a few upcoming races, including a half marathon that was imminent, as in 5 days later -- the Saturday that just passed (well, today, as I post this), where some of the pacers had to cancel (injury or illness). I've seen "Just a Short Race" on the race calendar for a while, but have never run it before. It's reasonably local (Pittsburgh is only about a 4-hour drive), so I decided to jump on it. 2 hour half? Sure, I can do that.

(This was the 25th anniversary of this race, held in memory of Sean T. Smith, who passed away from leukemia in 1995. Among the four simultaneous overlapping distances -- 5k, 8.1 miles, half marathon, and 30k - they raise thousands of dollars each year for leukemia and blood-borne cancer research.)

Then I looked at the profile. Online, it looked pretty daunting, with a few really nasty hills. I was definitely uneasy during the three days' training runs that I had specific to this race - making sure to have sufficiently steep and long-duration inclines on the treadmill. And some of the notes from a couple of the pacers who have run it before flagging how the mile markers were sometimes off a bit (which makes proper pacing quite tricky) but also providing additional static landmarks to keep time off added to the anxiety a bit. But I took the notes down, made sure I had all of those extra landmarks and expected timing written on my pace band.

Race start -- Decent turnout for a very local event. Yours truly is visible at around :47 in the video.

As we waited at the starting line, I chatted with a couple of people who would wind up running with my group, and we looked at the intimidating hill that the people running the 30k were on. (They have an extra half mile that they run before being on the same exact course for the rest of the race as the other three distances.) Mercifully, we didn't need to deal with that hill at all. While we did have a somewhat nasty one in the first mile, it wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things, and the downhill afterwards had me flying way faster than pace. It took a bit of effort to slow it back down once I got to the flat to get back to the expected pace.

The course is an initial 5k "lollipop" followed by 5-mile laps around a lake (hence the 8.1 and 13.1 mile distances, too). All of the mile markers were, blissfully, pretty much right where they were expected to be. Whatever might have happened in the past, everything was what it needed to be. 

Good timing on this photo, catching me telling the people around me to make sure those finishing the 5k need to stay to the right, when the rest of us stay left around the corner.

Just after the 4 Mile marker, on our first loop. The teenager in front of me was always in that approximate position. As I would remark to him after we finished, he was a great rabbit to chase the whole time, very consistent pacing.

The distances worked. The additional rolling hills weren't nearly as bad as the online profile had me think they were. And the temperature, while nice for standing around before the race, was definitely on the overly warm side. But as it was a half marathon, I was less concerned about the possibility of overheating, though made sure to continually tell my group at each water station to drink something. (Turns out, it actually got as hot as 73F by the time I finished.)

Alas, somewhere in the 2nd lap, the few people that had coalesced at all as my "group" had fallen off pace. Always disappointing to see that happen. While I am pleased that I was able to hit all three splits that I needed to for anyone keeping pace with me, it would've been nice to see someone in my group break to finish in front of me. (EDIT: Upon further review of these photos and looking up results for the people I know were with me for a decent chunk of the time as part of my group, two of them actually did pass me at some point to finish nearly two minutes under the 2-hour goal time. Sweet! Not sure how I hadn't recognized it at the time.)

                                          

Given that it was "only" a half marathon, I couldn't bring myself to have a post-race burger. (I save those for runs of 20+ miles, so typically only marathons - and maybe once during my training long runs.) But the bakery I found online in advance wound up being the right call -- their breakfast burrito was quite tasty, and a hearty portion.

Hmmm... while the half marathon is not my preferred distance for racing, I can definitely see appeal in pacing this distance. It doesn't take too much out of me, and is the sort of distance (or less) that I would be doing on a given weekend day anyway. Maybe I should take a look at whether there are some that are relatively local... Hmmm...