Baystate Half Marathon 2019 Recap
Let’s just start with…WHY am I standing on Dave’s foot in this photo?! Not quite sure what is going on there! Anyway…we ran the Baystate Half Marathon this morning and it was so much fun! I was a bit nervous of how it would go given my plantar fasciitis but I’ve been really good about icing, rolling on the Foot Rubz ball, and foam rolling every day and wanted to see how it went.
The Morning
4:15 am - Alarm went off and I dressed in my race outfit. I pre-packed my bag and had my race outfit laid out so that I didn’t have to stress too much that early in the morning and forget something.
4:30 am - I ate half of my pumpkin overnight oats and had water with 2 tablets of Nuun.
5:20 am - Leave apt for Lowell!
6:00 am - Park in the Tsongas parking garage that is VERY convenient to the start and bib pickup. There are 2 other parking lots that aren’t too far away if you end up getting there later. They all cost $5 cash to get into.
6:10 am - Bib pick up and bathroom stop indoors. Bib pickup the day of was from 6am to 7:45 am. One of the emails mentioned they wouldn’t guarantee that you could get to the start in time if you tried to pick up your bib that morning. Of course that got me worried, but we were fine since we got there so early. We also used the indoor bathrooms (no lines at this point!).
6:10-7:00 am - Hang out in the nice warm car listening to some pump up music.
7:00 am - Drink 12 ounces of water mixed with some UCAN Performance Energy powder. I tried this out on my 10 miler this past Tuesday and wanted to try it during a race.
7:14-7:40 am - Waited in line at the indoor bathroom. The porta potty lines weren’t too long but I didn’t come very prepared with great race layers to toss so I wanted to stay warm. I didn’t mind standing in line either because I had to go but the line let me work up some more pee (sounds gross…but you know you’ve done it too!)
7:45-7:55 am - Headed to the start and did a warm up jog with some leg swings. It was a pleasant surprise that the race start wasn’t very crowded. I had space to move around. The start was a little crowded once you hit the road running though and I found myself zig zagging a bit. I wished I had started a little farther up (there are no corrals for this race).
8:00 am - RACE STARTS!
The Course
The course was a two loop course and pretty flat overall. There were a few small hills but I didn’t mind because there were also some small downhills where I could pick up my speed.
There were 4 water stops and 4 porta potty stops - so that means 8 total for the half since you looped twice. There weren’t a ton of spectators but there were enough to keep me going. I loved that there were so many little kids looking for high fives. They were so cute but I was feeling a bit tired and couldn’t get the energy to extend my arm to give them a high five!
My Pacing and Time
My dream goal was to get my old PR of 1:35 and my more realistic goal was 1:40. Given how my feet have been feeling, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. My game plan was to use the Garmin PacePro feature for a 1:38 pace race to try to get someplace in the middle. If my feet started to feel bad, I would back off the pace and just try to finish injury free.
I ended up feeling pretty strong for the first 6 or so miles. My breathing felt calm and my feet felt light. I was channeling some form cues that Kim, aka TrackClubBabe, recently posted on instagram.
I drank the UCAN shake which was supposed to last 60-90 minutes so around mile 6 I started to take little bites of my Honey Stinger vanilla gel. My legs were still feeling pretty good but were slowing down a bit. I could tell I was losing track of that 1:38 but kept trying to do my best. I actually tried to not look at my watch too much and just go at what was a pace that felt good but was still challenging.
I ended up with my more realistic goal clocking in at 1:40:29 (7:41 pace, 18th in my division). You would think I’d be so excited at this but my first thought was “Darn, I didn’t get my dream goal”. Dave talked some sense into me and I also realized that there are few things I should be really proud of:
This is a post-injury PR! Yes my pre-injury PR was 1:35:43, but my post-injury PR was 1:40:50. So I beat it by 21 seconds!
My heels and feet feel good! My right toe was feeling a little sore during the race but overall my feet felt great.
I felt strong throughout the whole race and raced smart. I had pretty even splits throughout the race and even negative split for the last 2.2 miles. AND my last 0.2 was a 6:41 pace. I knew I was getting so close to getting around 1:40 and I wanted to really push it. One of the runners could tell I was really determined and shouted to me, “GIVE IT ALL YOU GOT! YOU GOT THIS!!!”. It definitely helped me push it harder.
While I had a great race, Dave had an even better race. He CRUSHED this race with a PR of 1:34:55 (7:15 pace)! He’s very excited and I’m very proud of him!
Would we do this race again? Yes! The race was well organized and it was perfect race weather. It was a little cold at the start but you could wait inside the Tsongas center and still get a decent warm up in before you headed to the start. I felt comfortable running in shorts, tank top and arm sleeves. I started with gloves and a headband but took those off as I warmed up.
Anyone else run Baystate today or in the past? What are your experiences?