Race Date: 18.9.2011
Official Finishing Time: 1:28:32 chip time
Official Overall Position: 37/897 (finishers), which puts me in the fastest 4.12%
Race number: 1709

This half-marathon, called ‘Capital City Run’, is already on its 38th year. It takes place in the Central Park, which is where I do most of my training runs. The route was thus familiar, and I knew that it’s fairly hilly. It’s also completely on gravel roads, although pretty good ones. It was clear that I wasn’t going to break any records today, and in the end I was more than 3min slower than my PB for the distance, but I was hoping to get to 1:27:xx. My training has been far from ideal during the summer though, and just over a week ago I stubbed my toe quite badly, fearing that it broke. Fortunately the toe didn’t give me any trouble during the race.

Weather was perfect: mostly sunny, no wind, and about 15 degrees Celsius. The route goes through a lot of woods, so very little direct sun light as well. Not much to say about the organization, things went smoothly enough. Just two complaints: there was no free storage for gear, and I wasn’t going to pay for it — fortunately no one nicked my gear. I would’ve also liked at least one more drink station, there were just three. I took a Clif Shot Blok before each one and just consumed water (from those bloody plastic cups), but I could’ve used some more liquids.

Splits:
5k 20:15,4
10k 20:46,4 (41:01,8 total)
15k 20:52,4 (1:01:54,2 total)
20k 21:18,2 (1:23:12,4 total)
Total: 21.28k in 1:28:36,0

I managed to keep a fairly steady pace despite the hills, although it’s clear that they started to slow me down towards the end. Strangely, the first 7km or so were the toughest (and the fastest), possibly because I still had the idea of trying for a fast time at the back of my mind. But after it was clear that this was just going to be a fight for a decent time I could ease into the run a bit more and even started overtaking people. I followed a pack of six or so runners for quite some time, overtaking a few of them on the way, and then I ended up running on the heels of the second lady for the last 5-6km, she beat me by 2sec with a finishing sprint — I really couldn’t be bothered! I was 19th in the men’s general series (under 35), so I guess the result was decent, but I do need to get some proper training in. Of course, Amsterdam marathon is coming up in just under a month, so I’ll have to start tapering for that in a week or two. This was my last half marathon for the season — I ran three and got progressively slower! Well, my PB stands at 1:25:15, which is just 16sec short of my season’s target, so I’m more than happy about that. I’ve still got one 10k race planned this year, in November.

Average heart rate was 176 bpm, which suggests that I ran pretty much as fast as I had in me. Garmin reports the total height gain at 186m, which sounds about right.

Official results here.
Garmin data here.