Race Recap: Rock N Roll St. Louis Half Marathon

I'll just get right down to it. I blew my own mind this weekend. I ran faster and stronger than I ever expected, and I couldn't be more proud of myself right now.

Let's see... where to begin... I made it to St. Louis around 3:00 Saturday afternoon. For the most part the drive up was uneventful, but about halfway there my phone’s car charger quit working. Ordinarily that wouldn't be a big deal, but since I was using the GPS feature, the battery was draining FAST. Then when I got into downtown St. Louis, there was a lot of road construction and I got all turned around. By the time I found my way to the hotel, my battery was in the red zone. Again, this wouldn't have been a big deal either… IF I had brought my wall charger. But I didn't. So to preserve the battery I had to keep my phone off most of the time, thus explaining the very few photos from my weekend!

Anyway, after I got checked in, I did the expo thing, grabbed a to-go plate of spaghetti from a little pizza dive near the hotel, ate, and was in the bed by 8:00. I was up late the night before and had to get up early to work half a day that morning, so I was pretty worn out.

Up at 5:00, Clif bar for breakfast, dressed and ready to head to my corral by 6:00!

The outfit. And photographic evidence of why I always wear my hair covering my ears.

It was still dark and a little on the chilly side just standing around. There was a beautiful view from the corrals though. The sun rising behind the arch was so pretty!

I took this one right after I got there. It got prettier as the sun rose, but I didn't want to turn my phone back on and waste any more juice.

By the time we got moving, the sun was well on its way up. It didn't take long at all to get warm. Within just a couple of miles I had a good sweat going on, but I never got uncomfortably hot. Sure I would have preferred it to be a little cooler (It was like 55.), but otherwise I can’t complain at all. It was a beautiful day for running!

As of the time I crossed the start line, I still hadn't fully made up my mind how I was gonna run the race. I figured I would know within the first couple of miles whether I was going to race it or just run it. Well when I felt how naturally the 9:30s were coming, I decided to just hold onto that as long as I could and see where it took me. Little did I know I’d be riding that pace all the way to the finish line. A few things of note…

The course started and ended downtown with some parks and residential areas in the middle. It was really pretty nice! The spectatorship was great. There were aid stations aplenty, and they were all super well organized.
I passed several people on every hill.
I hit the 10k mark in PR time. When my watch read 6.2, the time on it was 59:09. When I crossed the 10k timing mat, my watch said 59:45. So either way I got my sub-1:00 10k.
My watch showed a distance of 13.2 at the end. I did a decent job of running the tangents, but there were a few times that I chose to run around the pack rather than slow down and run with it on the tangent line.
I hit a rough patch around mile 8.5. It was right after I had stopped for a few seconds at an aid station. I had walked through a couple of them prior to that so that I didn't drown myself trying to take a drink, but I actually pulled off to the side and stopped at this one to dig the compression shorts under my skirt out of my crotch and launch a couple of snot rockets. I know. I’m such a lady. For a few minutes I was afraid that by stopping I had lost my groove, but I just keep pushing and eventually came through it and found my stride again.
The mile that included the aid station stop was my one and only mile over a 10 min/mile pace.
I had three Clif Shot Bloks at mile 4ish, three more at mile 8ish, and about half of a vanilla bean GU that I had grabbed from one of the earlier aid stations at mile 11ish to get me through those last couple miles.
I hit the lap button when my watch read 13.1 at a time of 2:06:30.
I crossed the finish line feeling positively triumphant. My goal was to average less than a 10 min/mile, and I crushed that.

For now I'll have to use my Garmin stats because, for some reason, according to the official results I wasn't even there yesterday. Faulty timing D tag? I dunno, but from the looks of the event's Facebook page, that happened to a lot of us. I've turned in an error correction request, but I don't know how long that will take; if it will have my 5k, 10k, and 10M splits; or even how accurate any of it will be.

After collecting my bling and some snacks, I headed back to the hotel to clean up because I had plans to meet THIS GIRL for brunch! What better way is there to celebrate a PR than with good company, food, and booze?! Valuable lesson learned: I am a CHEAP DRUNK immediately after running.

So half marathon #9 was one for the record books (well, MY record book anyway) and has left me looking forward to December 1st more than ever!

One more for the ever-growing collection. My precious...

Labels: PR, race report, St. Louis