Camarillo Half Marathon: 1/5/14

My first race of 2014 is done! My motivation has been lacking lately so I signed up for this race in hopes of finding my mojo again. I almost thought that this race was not going to happen since I has some strange knee pain the night before. I stepped out of my car and felt a sharp pain in my knee and it was not pretty. I iced my leg in my hotel room, took some Advil and said my prayers. I was feeling pretty disappointed since I did not want to start the year out with an injury. Thankfully I woke up pain free on Sunday morning with hopes of running the race.

The race did not start until 7:15 am and we stayed in a hotel that was a couple of miles away from the start. I set my alarm for 5:30 am and headed to the start around 6:15 am. It was about 40 degrees at the start so we decided to wait it out in the car. The parking lot was really close to the start so we waited until 6:45 am to hit up the bathrooms. There were a total of four porta potties and the line was pretty long. They did have some "real" bathrooms as well since the race started at a park. 

The course is flat and fast but the problem is that it was extremely WINDY! I think someone posted on Facebook that the gusts were 24-35 mph! Not fun! Most of the race was windy and when the runners caught a break it did not last for long. I would love to run this course less the winds since I think it would be a great PR course. The marathon is a double loop of the half marathon course so I really have respect for those who ran the full marathon.

The first mile was a test of my knee to make sure that it was going to hold up. I already had my mind set on turning back if I felt any pain. From the smile on my face, you can see that I was grateful to be running without the knee pain.

Mile 1: 8:16
Mile 2: 8:06
Mile 3: 8:26 Windy!
Mile 4: 8:27 Windy!
Mile 5: 8:01
Mile 6: 8:04

My goal for this race was to average an 8:35 pace and I did accomplish that but not without a struggle. The part that sucks is that I was able to run at a decent pace when there were no headwinds so I think I could have done a lot better... less the winds that is. My knee felt fine but my IT band started to bother me around Mile 9 and then I went into survival mode. I am busy nursing my IT band back to health with lots of icing and foam rolling.

Mile 7: 8:13 Windy
Mile 8: 8:01
Mile 9: 8:30 Windy!
Mile 10: 8:39 Windier!

The last 1.5 miles were horrible and water cups were flying everywhere. No matter how hard I pushed, my pace was slowing down and I felt like I was running hills!

Mile 11: 8:06
Mile 12: 8:25 Windy!
Mile 13: 8:51 Windiest! I thought I was going to blow away!
.12: 7:38

I tried to pick it up in the end but I was pretty tired from battling the winds and I think they won! I finished in 1:49:07 which was good enough for 6th in my age group out of 52. A female won the race in a time of 2:52:43 and the results also showed that a 99 year old woman ran the half marathon in 2:15:05. I doubt that is true since the race director didn't mention it but but I did see the first place female out there and she was kicking some serious butt!

I know that every race will not be a perfect one so with that thought in mind, I am hoping that my next race will be a better one. It doesn't a have to be a PR but just a good run! Having said that, I will be running another half marathon this Saturday to celebrate a birthday with this wonderful lady who will be turning 22.5 for the second time!