January 22, 2024 - Vero Beach Half Marathon Pacing

Yesterday I paced at the Vero Beach Half Marathon. I do really enjoy pacing even at a smaller race like this was. A little local thing, not a huge field, but a bunch of people just trying to have a good time and see what they are capable of. And me there to help a few of them along.

It was a rather cold morning for South Florida, 46 degrees at the starting gun. It made for a perfect morning to run hard, though a very chilly one to be pacing at an easy pace. I was unusually untalkative during the run, though I think that made sense. When pacing a marathon, I try to engage my group with some simple dialog. Nothing requiring more than a two or three word answer, but a little chit chat. I didn't do that yesterday. And the truth is, at half marathon pace, holding even a short conversation shouldn't be very manageable. 

The course was pretty, though a bit windy with lots of twists and turns through a variety of neighborhoods. Not a course I was going to memorize ahead of time. It also included a relatively long climb up a causeway in the first mile and fifth mile. A mile one climb is pretty tough, not being warmed up yet. But my challenge yesterday was of a different sort. Given the cold weather, I struggled to run my pace evenly. I kept looking down at my watch to see a 7:25 or 7:30 instead of the 7:55-8:00 I was targeting. It felt like 8:00, but was often faster. And in mile 8, I stepped into a pothole and twisted my ankle pretty severely. All seems fine this morning, but the adrenaline hit from that moment sent me surging forward at a much quicker pace while I worked out in my head if I was okay or actually injured. It took almost 5 minutes before I adjusted, realized I was fine, and noticed I was running much too fast. Not ideal for even split pacing, but better than me having to drop out of the race with an injury, I suppose.

I was running with the 1:45 group. My official pace team target is 30 seconds under the stated race target, so 1:44.30 in this case. I came in a bit quickly, 1:44.18. But the fun part was finishing with some runners who had stuck with me! It's kind of rare in Florida races. People seem to underestimate the heat and humidity, and a good day is finishing with a single runner who starts with me. Yet yesterday I had a good group stick around. Even several people who started with me for the first half, then pushed ahead and finished well under my target. And everyone who started with me whom I spoke to afterwards had run a PR on the day! It was fun.

This week is my most anticipated official pacing gig, the Miami Marathon. In Miami Marathon tradition, the weather looks tough. In the 70s and humid at race start and warming up from there. As is the case in any race like that, I'll try to have a not disheartening or dispiriting but honest conversation with my group in the starting corral that it may not be the day to chase big PRs. Frustratingly, another cold front comes in less than 24 hours after the Miami Marathon, which would have brought a start time temperature of high 50s or low 60s. But it's not a Miami Marathon without the heat and humidity, I guess.

After Miami Marathon, I'm done with road and marathon training and fully turning my attention to Bighorn 100 and the High Five By 55 project. I've already made most of the training changes, and now it becomes more of a mental switch. I look forward to it.