Lake Effect Half Marathon
The course was an out and back along the lake that got run twice. On the 'out' direction it was a complete headwind that was blowing about 20 miles an hour. It was awful.
I warmed up a little bit and then waited for the start. The jacket I brought was going to be too light, so I wore the 2014 Boston jacket instead since it was heavier. The first 3ish miles of the 'out' was rough. I was running too fast for the start, but I wasn't pacing it so much as trying to stay with people to get out of the wind. At the turn around, I immediately started overheating and before long the jacket was in my hand/arm being carried like a football. I kept switching hands, which took some juggling because my fogged over sunglasses were in the other hand. They fogged up really bad and I was running blind for about a half mile.
Right before the turnaround to go back into the headwind, a volunteer stepped out on the course and motioned for a handoff. It was very cool of him to take the jacket. Once I hit the other turnaround and was going back into the headwind it was rough. I wasn't as cold as the first time, but it was still rough. I kept trying to power through the wind and found myself taking baby steps in the process. I swear that a section of my shirt froze when I was heading back into the wind. I could feel an area of the shirt go stiff that was about the size of a dinner plate. I just kept pushing through running by feel the entire time. With the wind being a huge positive/negative depending on the direction pace was going to be wonky. I didn't look at HR once until the end. I think this is the first race run entirely by feel.
On the final trip back towards the finish with the wind at my back I was trying to open my stride and take advantage of the wind but the pace just felt slow. There was nobody around to compete with. I couldn't see anyone ahead of me at all and at the previous turnaround could see that I had at least a quarter mile on the person behind me and probably further. I just kept running by feel and it felt like I was slacking some, but looking back at the data I don't think I was.
The course is designed a little weird (pronounced: mean) because you have to run past the finish line about a quarter mile and then turnaround one last time. I figured once I was going back into the wind then it would be time to dig deep and start a kick but it just wasn't there until I turned the last corner about a hundred yards or so from the finish and saw that the clock was 1:27:40 so I would have to sprint to get under 1:28. The garmin says that I hit 4:57 mile pace during the kick but I don't really believe it. Once I finished then the effort hit me hard. I was choking and gasping. I spent 5-10 minutes doubled over on a bench certain that I was going to throw up. It took about a half an hour before I felt normal and during most of that time I was fighting off a full fledged asthma attack.
BTW, I thought it was funny that multiple volunteers in completely different parts of the course made a big deal out of my size. They were making comments about me not having anyone in front of me the same size as if I was running in my own division. Early in the race I did have a bike escort for a couple of miles, but that was just because the first place woman was hiding from the wind behind me.
Here is the data.
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1593114212
