Race Report: Colonial Half Marathon

My first half marathon was the Colonial Half in 2002. I thought it would be fun to do this race again! And I though I remembered the course but come race day the only thing I really remembered was the finish and a little bit of running on the streets. If we ran on the park trail 10 years ago I clearly blocked that out! I headed down to Williamsburg Saturday afternoon with Carol and Pam and we made good time as there was no traffic. We found our hotel easily and after checking in went out to find some dinner. We had pizza at a local place called “The Library” which was right near the William & Mary campus. Since the race wasn’t to start until 1PM on Sunday I decided I’d do something different and have a beer. Or two. After dinner back at the hotel I promptly crashed out watching The Bodyguard...

Morning came and it was kind of nice to not have to get up before the crack of dawn (like on a swim morning) to get to the race start. We took our time getting ready and headed out for breakfast at one of the many pancake places in town. Not the best choice for me and Carol but they work for Pam. I won’t be doing this in 12 days before the Shamrock Marathon! Look at the cool street name (Ironbound Rd) we saw driving to breakfast?

Anyway, my goal for this race was to ‘run hard’. After breakfast we headed over to the race site – which was about a mile from the hotel – or William & Mary Hall. This is where the basketball team plays. And where the finish of the race is – they open the end of the building and we run into the hall where they’ve got the finish line, a beer section, a food section, and other hydration. Pretty cool finish area, actually! Each runner (over the age of 21 of course) gets I think it was 2 beer tickets. I carried mine with me during the race! We had lots of time to kill and took our time heading to the start which was a pretty good walk away. I really had forgotten all of this from 10 years ago! We took a little group photo and Carol practiced her three finish line burpees while I practiced my three finish line cartwheels. We are practicing these for the finish of Ironman Lake Placid and after every long run do these. So we finally decided it was time to walk to the finish. And as I mentioned, it was father than I remember/we though and even with a little jogging to get there we were late! We heard the horn go off and were still a couple of minutes back. Oops! But we were not the only ones!

We finally cross the line and start running. We stayed together for a bit – the first couple/few miles. I really cannot remember. Carol pulled ahead and Pam fell behind a bit. I just concentrated on ‘running hard’ and using my nuun and taking my Gu and salt cap tabs on schedule. At some point before the turn around I caught up to Carol who was having a slight reaction to breakfast. Boo. I pushed on. I swear I do not remember this trail. At all! In fact, the course did not even seem to resemble the drawing I’d looked at at check in. Oh well. It was nice heading back. I tried to take advantage of any downhill areas and only walked three times at the aid stations where I’d got a bit of water for my salt tabs. I was pretty happy with that. It was a pretty warm day – I was in a run cami and shorts. I have not run in real running shorts in, well, years. Shorts don’t like me and vice versa. So this was my test run for Shamrock, too, because I’d wanted fun, green shorts so I could be festive! The shorts worked great!

I was finally getting closer to the finish area as we got out of the park trail and back on the streets. I had been going back and forth with one runner for a bit and lost him in the last mile. Thankfully, the last section is a downhill to the finish area where you turn the corner and go into W&M Hall. With all the stuff inside it seemed so small! I went right through without doing any cartwheels and headed right to the beer area for my one beer I was going to have. I was sipping on that when Pam came through. She had been running with Carol till a short time before. As I worked on my beer Carol came through. She joined us and I finished the beer then we grabbed some food and water and headed to the restrooms. Out in the hallway Carol got motivated and did her three burpees! I in turn was motivated and did my three cartwheels. I cannot believe we did that in the hall outside the ladies locker room. We didn’t waste any time hanging around and headed out to the car and back home. We got lucky again with a traffic-free trip back home. We stopped for food in Fredericksburg but other than that we sailed right along. Fun race weekend!

Last weekend was my last long run before Shamrock. I had an 18 mile zone 2/3 run on my schedule and Carol had 11 on hers for the Shamrock Half. We started running at about 9AM and tried to go out on the trail between Wakefield Park and Lake Accotink. Due to the heavy rains from the day and night before the trail was a tad flooded. We only made it about ¾ mile and had to turn back. So we back tracked a short bit and headed up into a neighborhood instead. IT was then a pretty uneventful run but perfect run weather: overcast and a bit cool. And no puddles to dodge! We ran around Ravensworth Farm and North Springfield more or less an out and back before heading back to the RECenter for a total of 11.5 miles. Carol did her burpees then headed home. I headed out for 6.5 more miles. The first three were actually really easy but the last three a bit hard. But, I got them done. And only 7 minutes off my planned time. I walked several hills when my heart rate got into zone 4. And at the end I did my three cartwheels!

All in all it was a good last training run. My legs got pretty crampy near the end and I took extra salt tabs. I did a pretty good job on my nutrition overall. I think for race day I will plan on taking the salt more frequently or even taking 2 at a time. I won’t wait so long for the first Gu either. And I may also make the nuun a bit stronger. Bottom line though my legs felt great after and I went out that night and had no problems, nor had no trouble walking stairs the next day. Success!

Next up: Shamrock Marathon – a ShamROCK’n good time!