Okay girls, it's finally here, the Mercer Island Half Marathon and 10K race! I've been doing a little investigation of the course, particularly the elevation gain and have some observations and advice. First of all open the mapmyrun map below and click on "show elevation". You can then make the elevation picture bigger to see more details. Upon inspection of this map here are my recommendations:
1. We need to run the first three miles ridiculously slow! It's pretty much all uphill and we will just ruin the rest of the run if we run fast. For this I recommend that I lead the pack :).
2. Miles 3.5-5 are pretty downhill so we can take this time to recover and gain a tiny bit of speed.
3. Miles 5-7 again are almost entirely uphill so we need to slow it down again depending on our energy at the time.
4. We reach our highest elevation around mile 9 so at this point we can see how we are feeling and begin to pick up the pace if necessary.
5. Miles 9.5-11 look pretty easy as it's all downhill. Our only major hill left looks like it's at about mile 11 and isn't too long.
6. It's mostly downhill to the finish where we will undoubtedly be sprinting to the finish!
I know we can kick this races butt but I also know we probably won't be making any personal records on this course as it's our most difficult half marathon to date. Kath and I were discussing the mental and physical challenges of steep hills and decided that if it looks like it's going to take all our energy to run up a hill we will just take it down to a power walk...there is nothing wrong with that!
Logistics: Stace has graciously agreed to pick up all our race packets and we are going to take her up on this offer since we have picked up pretty much all her packets in the past :). The half starts at 9:05 and Rach's 10K starts at 8:45. I suggest we get to the course just before Rach starts so we can root her on. It looks like the start is really close to Stace's apt so we'll let her investigate that and decide on a meeting time.
Weather: According to NOAA it's going to be a chance of showers with a high in the low 50's...at least we know it won't be snowing!
Post any thoughts, ideas, advice in the comments section and let's have a great race!
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P.S. I think we need to get some pictures of us in actual formation to update our website :)
ReplyDeleteSo I think we should plan on meeting at my apartment around 8:15. Leave for the race around 830, maybe a little before since rach's part starts at 8:45. Andy said he'd drop us off at the course.
ReplyDeleteI am going to pick up everyone's race packet today, then do a drive of the Half course. I have a cold, so this race is gonna be super fun. Ba-AM!
Does this plan sound okay? I'm bad at planning, so Lar, feel free to intervene.
P.S. So crappy St. Pat's Dash didn't take my chip time into consideration! Did this happen to anyone else?