Real David H.

I didn’t quite get a sub-1:50 today in the Lynchburg Half Marathon, but I did what I set out to do — run it in what would give me a marathon time between 3:40-3:45.
My unofficial time was 1:50:23, setting a course record by more than a minute over last year’s race.

For a humid August morning, I couldn’t be more pleased with today’s training race.

Similar to last year, my thoughts in the first few miles were to conserve energy for the huge hill. With mile times in the high 8:30s, I was feeling pretty good.

The hill that’s in this course is truly a make or break point, both going up and down. I kept a solid pace going up, staying in the 9:20s, which included walking a small portion of it.

After that, I felt great, which included hitting mile 7 in 8:04.

After I came down the hill and had a little more than 3 miles to go, I focused on maintaining a solid pace and not worrying about what my finishing time would be. I didn’t want to be too conservative, but I also didn’t want to overdo it. I had to remind myself quite often that this was a training race.

My final 3 miles were in the 8:10s, leaving me feel like I had more to give once I got to the finish line.

That’s really the point of doing a training race though — leaving something out there. I could run a sub-1:50 today had I not slowed at water stops or if I pushed it a little harder at the end. I probably could knock another few minutes off my time if I raced this course.

The big picture, though, is the Richmond Marathon, and I feel like today’s effort puts me right where I need to be with just less than 3 months to go.