Newport Liberty Half Marathon Race Report

Official Stats:
13.1 Miles
1:33:46 Minutes
7:09 Pace
195/2800 Overall
21/1083 Women
7/236 Age Group

Garmin Stats:
13.31 miles
1:33:41 minutes
7:02 pace
*The Garmin splits are not completely accurate, especially the first mile. It took a long time for my watch to get on track, and as you can see, it has me running about 2/10 of a mile more. This particular course has a history of mishaps concerning distance, however, so I’m not sure which is more accurate…

Splits:

Race Report:
I finally did it! Despite the minor detail that I am already in by default I have officially qualified for the New York City Marathon!! 2011 of course. For the past two years I have been unsuccessfully trying to break 1:37 in the half marathon. Last year, I came extremely close, but ultimately missed officially qualifying by 11 seconds. Even then, I would have had to use the 60 second cushion window so really I missed breaking 1:37 by 1 minute and 11 seconds. This year, I was having none of that. I made sure to crush last year’s time by almost 5 whole minutes! My previous half marathon PR was 1:38:10. Similar to the 10k, the half marathon has proven to be a difficult distance for me. It is awkward in which it is basically a medium long time of pretty fast running. In any event, now that I am more aware of what my lactate threshold is, I am able to train smarter and finally was able to break my goal time.

When we arrived at the race this morning, it was more chaotic than it had been in the past. There was traffic approaching the race and the line for the bathroom was insanely long. My dad and I were running around like crazy trying to get everything done: go to the bathroom, get our numbers, shirts, check the bag, warm up etc. I tried not to worry too much, because I didn’t want to burn through all my adrenaline before the race. I had two goals for this race. My main objective was to break that 1:37 and set a new PR. Realistically, I thought I could average a 7:15 pace overall. I decided to try to keep my pace between 7-7:15 for the majority of the race. Unfortunately, I am too reliant on my garmin, which happened to be uncooperative today. We didn’t get much of a warm up in, but I figured it would keep me from going out too fast. I would loosen up more during the first couple of miles. The garmin first mile is not accurate. The clock said about 6:50 which felt perfect. I eventually fell into a groove and the first half of the race flew by before I knew it. I love this race because the course is scenic. Most of the miles are run in Liberty State Park, with views of Lady Liberty and the water. It was a beautiful day for a race, with temps in the low 70s.

Here are some pics: