Tuesday, October 03, 2023

Leaf Peepers Half Marathon and 5K

A most unusual race, for me.

1. This was the first race, of any kind, for a few years--I think the most recent race was the John Carson 4th of July race in 2018, more than 5 year's ago.

2. This is the only race I've ever done in Vermont. I kept trying to get back into running when I lived there, but in the whole 8 years I never got consistently into the running habit.

3. This was my first half marathon, as a race. I've done 12 half marathons, in the form of 6 full marathons, or 6 back-to-back half marathons.

4. This is the first race where I planned to run with someone, like I planned to run with her and not just run in the same race. My middle daughter has been running and let us know that she was thinking of doing this race, but was nervous because she'd never run that far. I indicated a willingness to run with her and it would be an excuse to go to Vermont, where she lives, and have a weekend visit. Later, some point between both signing up and the actual race, we settled on a plan: I would run with her till the turn-around point, in this out-and-back course and then...and then we'd see how we feel.

5. A negative split: I've probably done negative splits in every one of the John Carson 2 mile races because it's really crowded at the start and lots of little kids who can't easily run 2 miles, nonetheless post themselves as close to the front of the pack as they can. The first half mile ends up being a cluster-fuck, which kills the first mile time but the whole race is only two miles, so it's easy to run the 2nd mile faster than the first. The negative split in the half was much larger and couldn't be blamed on the crowds.

The first 7 miles, I ran with Dahlia and averaged 10:16 per mile, the last 6 full miles averaged about 8:44 per mile. This is 1:32 per mile faster. I steadily passed other runners for the rest of the race and this was very satisfying!

Here's the laps, according to Garmin:

Other Notes

As part of the visit, we rented a house and invited my wife's parents to come with us--we did the same last year, though there wasn't any race involved. As usual, the weather, the foliage and general Vermontness was perfect at this time of year. Last year we brought our very old dog, Meenah and it was kind of a swan song for her--she was pretty out-of-it, but I think she knew she was surrounded by her Humans. This year we had the new puppy, Enzo and it was his first trip from home. He was a good boy and soaked-up all the attention a puppy can expect at a road-race.

For the race itself: It started-out with ground fog and dampness. Dahlia and I just jogged along easily, chit-chatting noting the miles as they slid by. By the turn-around, it was sunny and warm. The course ran mostly along the Winooski river and was mostly a well-maintained dirt road. The last mile went though some nature area and was trails.