The state half marathon record for my age group is 1:20:08. I had hoped to attempt it last year but trashed my shoulder the week before the Georgetown to Idaho Springs race, one of the faster halves on the circuit here. This was about revenge. Nevertheless, I was daunted by the pace needed (6:07) to break the record but felt resolved. Was top 20 by 2 miles and felt pretty good about 12:40. Then we hook onto the freeway frontage road and headed to Idaho Springs.
I focused on staying relaxed. Hit low 6s through 10K (a little over 38), and bounced between 5:55 and 6:15, mostly in the 6:00 to 6:05 range. I reeled in a pack at 7-8 and was feeling pretty good physically. A young guy (turns out he was just 17) went with me and pretty much ran together the rest of the way. He also indicated his goal was sub 1:20.
But the hurt was on. I thought about curling up and dying on some of the short uphills from 8.5 to the finish. And I dropped back a bit a few times, but stayed in contact with my co-conspirator. Was at 60:50 or so at 10. On the last mile we went under the freeway had a 250-300 m riser into the town of Idaho springs, and by then I was into fog zone similar to the last stretches of a hard 5K and really wanted to die. It took a half km to recover from the hill and fortunately by then we had just 400-500 m of gentle downhill to navigate--hit 5:40 pace or under on that last stretch.
1:19:18! New record.
