Monday, October 27, 2014

2014 White Mountain Milers Half Marathon


Second time doing this New Hampshire race.  What a difference a year makes.  Last year Jen (my daughter) and I did this race and Jen did the race running for two - grandson number three came along for the ride :) well sort of and a few months later was born.  This year, grandson number three came as a spectator.

In the 40s for the beginning of the race
One of the things that I really like about this race - they have a 'walking' division.  So the walker I am signed up to walk this half marathon.  And new this year, since they did want all off the course by 12:00 noon (on a 9:00 AM start), they offered an early start at 8:30 for anyone who wanted the extra time.  So for the first time in all these races I've done so far, I got to take part in a race with an early start.  

There were 15-20 early starters, some walkers, some runners.  They wrote down our bibb numbers, blew the horn and we were off.  It was a bit weird for a few blocks.  People were on the race course/side walks not having any idea that we were participants in the race.  But time & distance did resolve that.  It was nice getting the early start.  At about mile 4 the runners started passing.  The passing did not cease until the end of the race.  That was really the major difference as typically few people pass me in a race and towards the end there are times I see no one else on the course.  

My goal this year was to finish the race under 3:00 hours.  Last year I was in better shape and completed the race with a pretty good walking time - good enough to place 2nd in the Walking division.    But this year, finishing under three hours would be fine with me.  Ironically my watch battery went dead as soon as I started it for this race.  Oh well.  So I had no idea of my timing during the race and in hindsight think that I enjoyed it more.

I had my camera with me and got a couple of pics from the backside of the race:







I met my goal and finished under 3:00 hours, actually it was just under at 2:59:25, a 13:42 mile pace.


Jen post race before body temperature started coming down

Jen & me post race with me scarfing down an everything bagel with cream cheese!   That is one of the benefits of doing these races  :)
It was a good race; it was a good day.