Eugene Half Marathon Race Report
This past weekend I completed my first ‘stand-alone’ road half marathon since 2008 I think. In 2022 I did the Silver Falls half marathon, but it was so hilly and … snowing… so I don’t count it as a half marathon that I cared about my time. And in 2019 I did a trail half marathon that I got really bad poison oak at so try to forget that one!
My time for this race was overall 2:06 which is not too much faster than my awful-feeling half marathon time from last year’s Morro Bay Half Ironman of 2:20… but it felt so much better overall!
In fact, talking to a friend last night, I felt like it was one of my favorite races in a long time, because it had friends, familiar sights, and just was FUN to run!
There was a difficult hill at mile 8 and after that as the splits show I never quite recovered… so I’ll need to do more hill repeats in future training. But overall I felt fine doing a newish running position that has me focusing on a mid heel strike instead of being ok with heel to toe strike. It still feels a bit strange on my calves but I’ve been mostly doing the physical therapy exercises given to me that include a focus on my calves etc. Also active stretching right before the race of my quads/glutes/IT Band were very helpful.
But the main thing I realized was that it was the combination of community I’ve established the past three years in Eugene as well as the training with friends, and the fact that I was able to run it injury free that made the race so special. “Monday Night Run Club” with Jeff, Ari, Miguel, Vanessa and others has been so special and a great part of my week… I’ve haven’t had this kind of community around sports since my own Tri-This days when I was for the first time running with friends except they were my high school students. Multisport friends who I’ve been able to swim and cycle and run with (Steffen and Jonah) have also been awesome — particularly Steffen and Jon because we’ve even been able to work out or share dad duties along side our kids for biking/running workouts!
Looking Ahead to IM 70.3 Victoria
For this month’s upcoming IM 70.3 Victoria, I’m hoping to hit weekly runs of about 8–10 miles each week until a week before, as well as ramp up the cycling and longer-distance swims. I still went to swim practice on Tuesday, but today went instead on an open water swim adventure. The water was too cold though even with a friend on a kayak, so I only swam about 1/4 mile. But… lessons learned and I’ll see about getting ‘bootie’s’ to help with the cold for training. The lake for IM 70.3 Victoria is usually around 63 not the 44 degrees I found it out later via a website it was today… which made me feel a little bit better about turning around for safety!
