Albuquerque Half Marathon Race Report

Official Time - 2:21:31. Half-Marathon PR!
Age group placing pending, but I think I was 18th of however many W45-49

Woke up in the middle of the night to let the dogs out. It was raining, but not too hard. I figured that I could run in that if it didn't let up in the morning.

However, when the alarm went off, all I heard was rain coming off the roof. It was wet out there, but the rain had stopped.

Checked the weather and it was about 47 deg with temps expected to be about 53 in late morning. I decided to wear capris and a long sleeve shirt. Had it not been for the threat of more rain, I would have gone with a short sleeve shirt.

Arrived at the parking area and had a good 3/4 mile hike along a muddy ditch bank to the race start location. Husband & I commented about how much it would suck to have to run on that. Ha! If I only knew...

Got our chips and found the others from the run group. Two were running the 10K. Three of us were running the half. A few were spectating. Wished everyone well and waited for the race to start.

While lined up for the start, the RD announced that we would be running down the road, to the foot bridge and across, then around a field on that same muddy ditch bank that we walked up from the parking area.

You have got to be kidding me! First off, the foot bridge is only wide enough for two people at a time. Secondly, the ditch was a slippery muddy mess.

But alas, he was not kidding. And roughly 2 minutes and 30 seconds after the gun went off, I found myself in a dead stop, waiting my turn to get across the narrow foot bridge. Sigh.

I took a picture of the foot bridge afterwards to show that I'm not exagerating about how narrow it was:

Once we cleared the bridge, we had roughly 2 miles of mud running before we finally got to the street. So yeah, the first 2 miles basically sucked. On the bright side, I definately didn't go out too fast. Ha!

After that, we finally made it out onto the road, where we stayed for the remainder of the race.

I won't bore you with a mile by mile replay, here are some highlights:

• My kids showed up at roughly the halfway point to cheer us on. I really appreciated that.
• On the asphalt, I settled into a pace that was basically the same as in training, ~10:45.
• The only walk break that I (purposely) took was at the final aid station.
• I believe I would have finished close to 2:20:00 if it wasn't for that stupid foot bridge at the beginning.
• I ran solid throughout. I wasn't able to turn it up at the end, but I didn't slow down either. I am happy with that.
• My knee started to bother me a little at mile 11. Not horribly, but enough to make me take notice.
• The run group did great overall. Both 10K racers won their age groups. Two of us had half-marathon PRs

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, folks. As for me, I'm ready for a nap!

Edited to add: I failed to mention it earlier, but I fully met my primary goal of finishing strong and feeling good. I'm VERY happy. :-)