I went and did it. Felt absolutely miserable on a 1.5 miler yesterday, but saw some pretty drastic improvements in my sinuses so I decided to give it a shot.

Prerace I decided I’d just go with Caitlin. She was shooting for 7:15 pace. That’s my marathon pace so if I could do a half while sick on a cold, windy, rainy day, I think that puts me in pretty good shape. As we started, I really didn’t feel like I was going to last a mile. That feeling continued the entire race… It was a hard one mentally. Around ten miles, I started feeling like I had a little something left so I opened it up a bit, and finished with no motivation, plenty left in my legs, and no energy in 1:35:49. Two minutes or so off my PR (set in the marathon), but given all the things going against me, I’m happy enough. My ten-mile race pace from a month and a half says I’m capable of a 1:25, and before getting sick I was planning on going for 1:29… Oh well, not in the cards today.

Caitlin finished as the 8th female with a 1:36:20 (four minute PR). AMAZING considering it was a race of 5000+. Our friend Clint, also sick, ran with us the first eight miles, and finished in 1:32 something. Erin also ran a great race, putting in a 1:53:04 (six minute PR)… So we’re all happy.

The course was pretty hilly, but also had lots of scenery changes, so it was sort of nice. There were 7000 competitors, but they all seemed to corral pretty well; no traffic issues that we ran in to. A well-run race… Thanks to Fredericksburg and the organizers.

I can’t say we’ll run this one again because it kind of fits oddly in to our usual schedules (I don’t plan on running a July marathon ever again… CAITLIN!), but wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

Overall, a good wake up call for future races… Weather and health aren’t going to always work out; have a backup plan and/or don’t be afraid to skip the race you were planning on setting a fast time in and reschedule for the next weekend. Trying to qualify for Boston this year, I need to very much keep this in my mind. Halfway in to training, I’ve been injured for several weeks, sick for another… It may not be the race for me. Luckily, we haven’t signed up yet… Going to give it another week of heavy mileage to see what happens.