Race Post-Mortem: Pi Day Half-Marathon

Pre-race picture of me, Thorne, and JR waiting in the rain in our corral.  Photo by JR.

Saturday, March 14, 2015
Washington, DC
Difficulty score: 3/10 (0 for weather, 3 for course profile, 0 for altitude)

No, there is no Pi Day Half-Marathon.  This was actually the Rock and Roll DC Half-Marathon (formerly the Rock and Roll USA Marathon, which before that was the Suntrust National Marathon), which just happened to take place on 3/14/15.

For Spring 2015, I decided I was going to break the cycle of fall and spring marathons that my racing scheduled had been centered upon for the past three years or so and devote a few months to focus on half-marathons, 10-milers, and perhaps some shorter distances.  I had planned a series of shorter races for the spring, including the Rock and Roll DC Half-Marathon, the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler in mid-April, and possibly one of the Crystal City Friday Night 5K races shortly after that.

I finished in 1:27:19 (6:40/mile), about two minutes slower than my PR at the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon this past September.  This was also the "longest" half-marathon that I had ever run; when I crossed the finish line, my Garmin read 13.29 miles.  Usually, I am pretty good about covering close to 13.1 miles in a half-marathon race; for other half-marathons, my Garmin reads anywhere from my record "shortest" half-marathon of 13.12 miles in the Colonial Williamsburg Half-Marathon to about 13.19 miles.

Oh well; I guess not every race can be a PR.  I did have a number of factors working against me this time around.  My training did not go as well as I would have hoped, nor was my mileage nearly as high as it was preceding my half-marathon PR.  Even though I did have a string of four or five weeks with mileage in the mid to high forties, I did have a few short interruptions to my training: once at the beginning of the cycle due to some bad hamstring soreness and twice due to sickness.  Also, the DC Half-Marathon course is tricky, and certainly more difficult than the Philadelphia Half-Marathon course; in addition to a very nasty hill near the 10K mark leading up to Woodley Park from Rock Creek Park, other tough segments featured in this course include a long uphill from Woodley Park to Columbia Heights and the rolling hills near the Mile 12 mark.

But at least I did get a good amount of points toward the DC Front Runners race circuit with this race.  A 1:27:19 half-marathon for me would translate into 71.22 points (that half-marathon time from a 32-year-old male gives an age grade score of 67.83; the extra 3.39 points comes from the 5% bonus added to scores for half-marathons in accordance with DC Front Runners race circuit scoring rules).  In general, I'm happy with any score above 70.

Training and the Days Leading Up to the Race

When I sat down to plan my training for this race back in December 2014, I set a goal range of 1:24:30 to 1:24:59 (6:27 to 6:29/mile).  This would have been slightly faster than my half-marathon PR from the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon this past September, and I thought a small improvement like that would have been reasonable.  My mileage was not going to be nearly as high as it was when I was training for the Chicago Marathon, but I figured that would not be a problem; after all, I was training for a half-marathon right now.

Also, I planned to include a little more speedwork, which I pretty much completely neglected while training for Chicago.  During marathon training this past summer, I sacrificed some of my quality workouts to be able to increase my weekly mileage to figures quite a bit higher than I had ever done.  The increase in mileage certainly did help; I got a 59-second PR in Chicago and ran a four-minute negative split.  But including a little more speedwork probably would have led to an even greater improvement.  Three weeks later, when I ran the Veteran's Day 10K here in Washington, DC to capitalize upon my fitness from marathon training, I found I had lost quite a bit of speed.  I finished in 38:55, 45 seconds slower than the 10K PR I ran just seven months before following the Shamrock Marathon (this never happened before; usually, when I run a shorter race after a marathon, I get quite a few PRs, or at least very close to my PRs).  So this time, I included weekly hill sprints and some add-on 300-meter intervals, following suggestions from Brad Hudson's and Matt Fitzgerald's book Run Faster from the 5K to the Marathon, hoping that the bit of additional speedwork would help during the half-marathon.

The weekly structure of my training for this half-marathon consisted of five days of running per week at the beginning, moving toward six days per week in the middle of the cycle as my mileage increased.  Each week looked like this:

• Monday: easy recovery runs of four to five miles.
• Tuesday: half-mile intervals done at 3K pace (5:40/mile) at the very beginning of the cycle; in the middle of the cycle, these would be replaced by six to seven mile runs containing tempo portions at 6:25 to 6:30/mile pace, with four 300-meter intervals done at 3K pace added on every other week.  
• Wednesday: OFF
• Thursday: seven to eight-mile runs up the very hilly segment on Massachusetts Avenue Northwest toward American University, in which I progressed to tempo pace for the last few miles.  
• Friday: OFF in the early weeks of the cycle, easy recovery runs of four to five miles later.
• Saturday: seven to nine-mile easy runs plus hill sprints, going from four by six seconds at maximal effort uphill to six by eight seconds.
• Sunday: long runs of between 10 and 14 miles.  The ones toward the end of the cycle included segments at target race pace.

With this training plan, I would have a string of weeks with mileage in the mid to high forties, with two 49-mile weeks in the middle of February.

However, as mentioned before, training did not go as smoothly as I would have liked.  I was dealing with a very sore hamstring during the first few weeks of the cycle, which prevented me from doing the Tuesday half-mile intervals.  I caught two pretty nasty colds; one in the middle of January and toward the end of February, both of which interrupted my training and forced me to forego a few of my Tuesday evening tempo runs as I recovered from sickness.  The snow and ice we got here in Washington, DC made some of the tempo runs and the add-on intervals infeasible, forcing me to replace them with slower runs.  

But I did, like I also mentioned before, get a good string of weeks where I was able to execute my training plan as originally written, and fortunately, these coincided with the highest mileage weeks.  Thus, I was able to get several weeks with mileage in the mid to high-forties, just like I had planned. 

The Race

Race day morning was cold and wet, with temperatures remaining in the forties or low fifties and a steady light rain lasting for the entire morning.  But I found that the rain did not really affect my performance, provided I avoided running through puddles; my shoes were like a sponge, and I really did not want to carry any additional water weight.

When I arrived at the start line, I immediately stripped off the jacket I was wearing and went directly to bag check.  Once again, bag check was arranged by last name in alphabetical order, which is one of the most thoroughly stupid race day logistics decisions I have ever encountered.  They had done this when I ran the Rock and Roll DC Marathon in March 2013, and this not only caused a number of people in the earlier corrals to miss their start, but also resulted in some misplaced and lost bags.  I had always asserted that arranging by bib numbers is the logical way to go for bag check.  This way, at the beginning, more volunteers could direct their attention to the lower-number bibs (i.e. the earlier corrals), making sure they get to the start line on time.  Then afterwards, they could gradually move more volunteers toward the higher-number bibs.  Also, ascertaining a runner's bib number takes a fraction of the time that it takes to ascertain their last name; all the volunteer needs to do is look at the runner's bib, rather than ask "what's your last name?"  Then there is the tendency of a surprisingly large number of people to mix up the second and third letters of my last name for some reason.  Then they would tell me I'm at the wrong truck when I'm really not; that's another bit of time spent dealing with bag check and holding up the line.

But regardless of my ranting, bag check was not a complete disaster.  I was able to drop off my bag within three minutes.  Of course, given that I had very little faith in bag check at this race, one logical thing to do could have been not to check any bags; but given the rain, a change of clothes for after the race and an umbrella would have been really nice.  Besides, I wanted to see my friend Socrates finish his first marathon, and I probably would not have been able to go home and change between when I finished and when he would pass the 26-mile marker where I planned to see him.  I was also very glad that bag check did not lose my bag.

As I mentioned before, the Rock and Roll DC Half-Marathon course is quite difficult.  The first six miles or so, in which runners go east on Independence Avenue, out and back along Memorial Bridge, and then north on Rock Creek Parkway are relatively flat and fast.  The next three miles are difficult; at around the Mile 6 mark comes the Shoreham Drive hill connecting Rock Creek Parkway to Calvert Avenue, which is short but steep.  But even though this hill is what most people bring up when talking about the difficulty of this course, the more difficult segment is yet to come; the next two miles through Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, and Howard University feature quite a few uphills and downhills.  Once runners reach North Capitol Avenue, the course does allow for faster running again, but it does become a little tricky again once we turn onto K Street; the course features several turns and uphill segments.  The last mile, fortunately, is mostly downhill.

Map of the Rock and Roll DC 2015 course, from the website.

The start through Mile 6 (splits: 6:40, 6:33, 6:35, 6:38, 6:38, 6:40): After a slightly slower first mile to transition into my target pace, I wanted to aim for about a 6:30 to 6:35/mile pace during these first six miles.  I managed to run in that range for the second and third miles, which covered Independence Avenue and Memorial Bridge, but once I turned off Memorial Bridge onto Rock Creek Parkway, I found that keeping that pace was actually a little difficult.  As usual, I focused on hitting the tangents and not wasting energy weaving in and out of people.

For the first half of the sixth mile, I was able to drop back down closer to 6:30/mile.  But when I arrived at the hill, my pace slowed again, as expected.  I tried to relax and just make it to the top.  I was able to pass several people on this hill, but I did not focus too much on that.  I did not want to expend too much energy on this hill; after all, I still had seven more miles to run.

Miles 7 through 9 (splits: 7:02, 6:40, 6:34): After finally reaching the top of the hill, I ran down the Calvert Street bridge toward Adams Morgan, through a large inflatable plastic blue arch that seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever.  Mile 7 is, in my opinion, easily the most difficult mile of the half-marathon.  In addition to the fact that it starts on that nasty uphill, runners have to face two more hills in this mile: one on Calvert Street right before the large intersection with Columbia Road and one on Columbia Road right before entering Columbia Heights (and right past where I live).  Neither of these hills are super long or steep, but they are enough to slow most runners down quite noticeably.  What also makes this part of the race difficult is that here, runners would need to find their rhythm again after that hill up from Rock Creek Park; that was what I spent much of this mile doing myself.

Mile 8, which features a long downhill stretch followed by a relatively substantial uphill segment, is less difficult, but still not a particularly fast mile either.  I was able to get closer to my original pace during this mile.  By the time I was running through Howard University at Mile 9, I was right back to where I was before that hill.  But during this portion, I began to encounter some slight headwinds, which were somewhat annoying, but not debilitating.

Miles 10 through the end (splits: 6:24, 6:20, 6:27, 6:23, 1:44 for the last 0.29 miles): North Capitol Street is a much faster segment than any part of the race that preceded it; even though the course does have a few uphills due to the underpasses, most of this part is straight and gradually downhill.  I took advantage of that and sped up once I turned onto North Capitol Street for a bit of a late-race kick.

I had managed to bring my pace down to 6:20 to 6:25/mile here, which was pretty uncomfortable.  During these miles, I was focused on just maintaining this pace until the end of the race.  But I did notice a few familiar faces on the sides during this portion, including the DC Triathletes spinning on the side of the course who called out my name as I passed, and Chris from DC Front Runners.  I did also notice that some people that I passed back near Howard University or Columbia Heights were now flying past me.

I had forgotten about the tricky parts of Mile 12 until I was staring at an uphill portion on 13th Street Northeast leading up to Constitution Avenue.  I was really pushing, and an uphill at this point was not something I wanted to see.  After reaching the top of this hill, I began the gradual descent toward the finish line at RFK Stadium.  Shortly afterwards, the marathoners, after having run with the half-marathoners for the past 20K or so, split off.  As I watched some of the marathoners turn right toward the more desolate and less aesthetically pleasing second half, I began to feel glad that I was not them.  At this point, I had barely enough to get me to the finish line.

I kept my pace steady for the thirteenth mile, although looking back, I could have been more aggressive, particularly since it was almost entirely downhill.  But I did put in one last surge once my Garmin indicated I had run 13 miles.  I gave it all I had and tried to break 1:27:00, but unfortunately, there was too much distance between myself and the finish line.  After finishing, I waited for Thorne, JR, and other members of DC Front Runners who were also running the half-marathon to finish before claiming my bag from bag check and changing into a dry shirt and dry socks and shoes under an overpass.

Remember, kids: let this be a lesson to you to always try to run the tangents.  The difference between running 13.29 miles and 13.15 miles can be a minute or more.  In this race, I finished that last 0.29 miles in one minute and 44 seconds.  Compare that to the last 0.17 miles in the Rehoboth Half-Marathon and the last 0.15 miles in the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon, both of which I ran at a similar effort and covered in 58 seconds and 51 seconds respectively.  Had I hit the tangents better and ran 13.15 miles rather than 13.29, I probably could have finished closer to 1:26:00.

Next Steps

My next race will be the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler on April 12, which will actually be my first 10-miler ever.  I'm not sure what to expect during this race; I'm currently not in as good shape as I hoped I would be, and with less than three weeks to go, whatever shape I am in right now is essentially the shape I will be in on race day.  But I do think I can still manage a pretty good finishing time; I hear from many people who have run that race that the course is fast, flat, and very conducive to a PR (or in my case, a strong 10-miler debut).

I am also considering doing the Crystal City Friday Night 5K five days after the Cherry Blossom.  For this race, I'm even less sure what to expect.  I have not raced a 5K in over a year, and I have not done any training for a 5K.  I suppose I could expect to finish in under 19 minutes; under 18:30 would be fantastic.  But after this 5K race, I would be done with racing until fall.