Sunday, October 31, 2010

Race Notes: Denver and Los Angeles Half Marathons

I wrapped up October with two half marathons seven days apart.

The Denver race was first. As usual, I was using the my Garmin 405 GPS to time my run/walk intervals.  I've had the watch for over a year and it's never once worked correctly in a race. After hundreds of runs where the Garmin screwed up, it actually worked in the Denver race. Unfortunately, I screwed up.  The night before the race,  I changed my normal run/walk intervals to give myself a shorter run and a longer walk.  I was having trouble breathing in Denver's thinner air and I figured I'd need to change my run/walk ratio.  I over corrected.  I did need the shorter run, but the longer walk was a waste of time.  The other issue in Denver was chafing of the chub rub/inner thigh variety.  Between the long walk intervals and chub rub, I had a slow day.

Los Angeles was advertised as a fast, flat course.  Lies!  All lies!  It was all hills.  None of the hills were especially steep, but it was unrelentingly up and down.  In more Garmin misadventures, I forgot my Garmin at home.  I was worried about that since I hadn't run without a GPS in several years, but it was fine.  Overall, I was pretty close to my normal race pace despite all the hills and heat.  Not bad considering I didn't have my watch for pacing.

I'm off from racing until December.  I could run the Silver Strand Half Marathon, but I'm going to skip it.  I need a little break.

1 comment:

  1. I have lived in LA for 43 years and I never knew there were so many hills in this city! We did it in costume and made it much worse.

    Here is the data from mt Garmin if you are interested.

    http://connect.garmin.com/activity/54239393

    Race report with pix:

    http://bobrunner.blogspot.com/2010/10/rock-n-roll-la-half-marathon-weekend.html

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