Half Marathon today in Philly. It was cold today, about 30 degrees at the start with wind chill in the low 20s, so I decided to wear tights and a cold gear top. Wind was about 8mph from the north with gusts up to 15.
The race went very well and my splits were pretty consistent given the wind and the one large hill around mile 8. I got a little side cramp around 7 miles while running into the wind so I struggled a bit up the hill and for a bit afterwards. The cramp went away as we hit the downhill and I picked up the pace a bit for miles 9-13 when we hit the turnaround and we had a bit of a tailwind.
As the early miles felt good at the pace I was running, I decided to go for sub-1:23 which is the half marathon qualifying standard for my age to bypass the lottery process for NYC Mararthon. I had fallen off pace slighly after the cramp/hill mile, but picking up the pace for the final 4-5 miles got me under 1:23. It was a PR by about a minute that I ran about 4.5 years ago on a flatter course and I my time on this course last year was 1:27:09, so this one felt really good today.
Splits per my watch were (first two miles are always off/too fast due to running downtown near the skyscrapers):
6:08, 5:52, 6:12, 6:11, 6:19, 6:20, 6:18, 6:38, 6:16, 6:10, 6:09, 6:15, 6:11, 6:05 (final .1)
I am right where I want to be 3 weeks before Boston (shooting for sub 2:55).
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