Alternate title: a bittersweet PR …

I’ve been running the VA Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon every year since 2005. It’s become a Labor Day tradition — my husband and I take a couple extra days off work and have one last beach vacation before summer ends.

Hurricane Earl threatened to ruin our plans, but fortunately moved through before we even arrived on Friday afternoon. And Saturday was a perfect day! After a big breakfast we headed to the race expo and proceed to pick up lots of snack samples!

We also did a little shopping … and of course I picked up my bib and shirt.

When I registered for this race (a year in advance), I put down a goal time of 2:10. This placed me in corral 13. I wanted to move up a bit, since I had run a 2:02:55 back in May.

I had a secret goal for this race. I wanted to beat two hours.

I didn’t have to move too far to seed myself properly. They had 2:00 runners in corrals eight through 10 or 11. I went to the corral-change volunteers and signed myself up for corral nine.

I ran this race on my own since my friends were running slower, but we still went over to the race together on Sunday morning. We met bright and early to catch the shuttle to the start line at 5am. It was actually a little chilly! It wasn’t  quite 65 degrees, so I grabbed a sweatshirt at the last minute. I hate being cold!

The nice thing about getting to the start line early is no wait for the port-o-pots. We took care of business and ate a breakfast of bagels and peanut butter. But of course a little while later, we all needed to go again.  I gear-checked my sweatshirt and got in a line.

It was about 30 minutes to race time. And it was a very long line.

We were still waiting when they sang the national anthem.  And when the elite and wheelchair waves started. And when they started calling off corrals. Uh oh.

My friends in corral 24 weren’t concerned. And really, it’s a chip race so it doesn’t really matter. Right?

Right. Because corral 9 was lining up just as I got to the front of the line. There was no way I was going to hold it in for 13.1 miles!

So I finished and ran over to the start line, and squeezed my way into the back of corral 10. Close enough!

Not the best way to start your race, but it didn’t bother me to much. I was ready for it!

I may have been watching the pace on my watch a bit more closely than I usually do …

1. 9:13
2. 9:14
3. 9:08
4. 9:13
5. 9:11
6. 9:15
7. 9:12
8. 9:14
9. 9:13
10. 9:16
    Not bad … and in fact, quite a bit faster than my 9:23/average PR half marathon. And my 10-mile split (1:32:50) beats my 10-mile PR! But I wasn’t running fast enough to beat two hours. A 9:09 average will get you a 1:59:59 half marathon. I knew I had been a bit too slow for my goal the whole race, and gave it all I had left!
11. 9:01
12. 8:55
13. 8:33

And the final .21 (Garmin) had me running at a 7:40 pace!

But no, not this time …

Actually chip time was a few seconds faster, but not enough. 2:00:16

I’m still super excited about another big PR, and I’m happy with how consistently I ran until the big push at the end … but I’d almost rather have missed it by a lot more.

Oh well, some day I will do it!

Overall: 3756 out of 14767 · Division: 198 out of 1337 · Gender: 1226 out of 8380