Your Weekend (or Week's) Rides -- Jan 12/13
 

Sunday -- Today I ran my very first Half Marathon!!! 21.2 km.

Stats according to Strava
Distance: 21.30km
Elevation: 177m
Moving Time: 2:51:15
Elapsed Time: 2:53:17
Pace: 8:02/km
Calories:1,694

I had done four 10Ks in the past year, and so I figured I was ready. I signed up for the Cadbury Marathon and selected half marathon. Then I started training in earnest ... for about a week or so. December was an incredibly busy month and I wasn't able to get in as much training as I wanted, but I still tried to walk lots, run when I could, cycle when I could and climb stairs.

Fortunately I had 16 days off over the Christmas break and I was able to be active every day.

I ran a 12 km two weeks ago, and a 14.4 km last weekend. The 12 km went all right ... the 14.4 went all right while I was running, but I felt awful after. I'm actually glad that happened because it altered my strategy for the better.

This past week, I just walked in order to give myself rest.

Today, we were up at an absolutely unearthly hour of the morning (4 am), on the road by 5 am, and at the event by 5:45 am.

The marathon runners were set off at 6 am, and my event went at 6:30 am. Rowan's event (5K) went at 8:45 am.

It was a perfect day ... blue sky and hardly any wind. The starting temp was 10C and it gradually increased to 18C by the end.

I followed my revised strategy which appeared to give me the energy to the end. Rather than running on an empty stomach the whole way, I was doing gatorade and water at the drink stations, and Gu Energy Chews along the way. I also ate about half an hour before the run. Fuel is good!

And then I settled into my pace and jogged.

My legs were cooperative until about 18 km when they decided they'd had enough of this nonsense, and that's when I started walking & jogging.

I finished in 02:51:11 which was faster than my estimate. I had guessed I'd be somewhere between 3 and 3.5 hours.
AVERAGE PACE: 08:06
OVERALL: 653 OF 694
FEMALE: 342 OF 377
F (50-54): 36 OF 39

A nice solid back-of-the-pack finish for my first half marathon!! :grin:


And Rowan? He did his 5K in 46 minutes ... mostly jogging with a little walking. I was so proud of him. :)


We got our bags of chocolate and stuff from Cadbury, and great medals! We shared hot chips while watching the presentations for the top 3 of each event. Then we came home and slept for about 3 hours.

I'm quite stiff and sore, and I think Rowan is too a bit. We'll see how I go walking briskly to the bus tomorrow!

But nevertheless, I'm thrilled to have done a half marathon!!

No cycling for me this weekend but lots of walking and looking at bikes. Bought a few pairs of new bibs too.

https://i.imgur.com/fnHJ1ib.png

Friday evening: Quick spin around some hills at the edge of town on the gravel bike without studs - very odd for Wisconsin in January! I was only planning on 10-15 miles, but got in 20.1, and 1,214'.

Still pretty slammed with work, but hoping to get a daylight ride in soon before the snow and ice returns.

^^^ Such a contrast in temps to here. 103F today and 106F tomorrow for the first official TDU stage. There was an unofficial city race on Sunday

Nice easy ride with my female partner, 40 miles at 15.6 :D

Saturday was decent weather, but fighting off a bug so slept a good part of it.

Bah.

I'm well into my eighth decade and started riding seriously about 6 months ago. Just finished my first 80+ mile week on Saturday. :giver:

52 miles on a loop I've done a number of times with a lot of short fairly steep grades. Still working on recovering from being off the bike for a month + so took longer than it used to and I was more tired when I got home.

Two cookie cutter rides Saturday and Sunday, both 40ish miles of my S. Tampa Picnic to Davis Is. route. Weather was nice 60's - 70's with sun and low wind. My only complaint: for some reason the nuts were out driving on Saturday. Made me a little nervous.