Two weeks ago, I crossed state #13 off my list with race #13 of 2014 with the a half marathon in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was a rainy day and in the low 60’s so it was really perfect running weather. I’d never been to Lynchburg, but the race started in a very old industrial area and most of the race was on the Blackwater Creek Bikeway & Riverwalk, so it was mostly paved and felt pretty flat, though the elevation chart doesn’t seem to agree. Around mile 4 there was a section that took us off the trail and up a dirt road to the top of a hill where we did two loops before coming back down and reversing the rest of the trail – the good news about this is that even though we had a major hill at mile 4, that meant that around mile 9, we came back down that hill!
I didn’t really have any expectations going into the race – I did exactly 0 training runs between The Scream and this race, though I did play soccer a few times each week, so I wasn’t sure how this half would feel. I definitely felt a difference in how my legs responded to this race over the Scream – my hip flexors started bugging me after about 7 miles and I think this is probably due to my lack of training at long distances this summer… I’ve done a handful of races this summer, but other than a 10 mile run at the end of May and the Scream in July, I haven’t really done anything beyond a 10k since my marathon in May. The good news is that I still feel like I’m in pretty good shape since I’ve been playing more soccer and staying active overall. So, back to the race recap:
- Mile 1 – 10:24
- Mile 2 – 9:48 <– the mile 2 marker was way off (near 1.5 miles) but mile 3 was back on track
- Mile 3 – 10:23
- Mile 4 – 10:55 <– uphill
- Mile 5 – 10:49
- Mile 6 – 9:59
- Mile 7 – 9:43
- Mile 8 – 9:51
- Mile 9 – 9:27 <– downhill
- Mile 10 – 10:14
- Mile 11 – 10:42
- Mile 12 – 10:29
- Mile 13: 9:30
- Last .1 – 5:50
