Albany Half Marathon Race Report 2011

This is my 4th time to run a the Albany Marathon but my first time to run the Half Marathon.  I hadn't been running as much as I would have like so I decide to sign up for the Half.  I figured that I could do the 13.1 miles no problem and have a GREAT Time at the race hanging out with friends and family.  A ran it with a buddy of mine and this was going to be his first Half Marathon.  Now I didn't get a PR or even close to it but I would say that this was the BEST race that I have ever ran.  Here's the story. 

I told my friend that I would like to do an easy pace on finish around 2 1/2 hours.  He was cool with that so we figured up the pace we would need to run.  This being his first race I said that we are going to start out SLOW.  Which we did.  The first mile we were about a minute off of our pace.  We were doing a a 2 minute run / 1 minute walk.  At mile two we had picked it up a bit and were about 30 seconds off of our pace. 

Between mile 2 & 3 we pass a girl in a green shirt.  The reason I remember her was because she had a rude comment as she pass us.  Granted we probably deserved it.  We both had our ipods in and we were laughing and joking and not to mention we were talking walk breaks every two minutes.  As she pass I turned to my friend Scott and said we will pass her before the race is over. 

Somewhere between mile 2 and 6 we had gotten back on pace and was where we need to be to finish in under 2 /12 hours.  At this point we were a little tired but felling GREAT.  So we decide to pick up the pace just a little bit.  We would see people we knew so we would run up to them talk and keep on running.  There was a light rain around mile 7 and 8 and the temps were in the mid 50's.

Around mile 10 we were feeling STRONG.  We looked at our watches and saw that we were so far ahead of our pace.  We continued to push the pace.  We actually ran pass his house were he had his family waiting on him.  It was very cool!  Always nice to have some cheerleaders on the course.

About Mile 12 we knew were going to be way under 2 and 1/2 hours.  To make it better we pass that girl in the Green Shirt.  Guess she needs to learn the Galloway Method. 

The last mile or so was tuff.  I was getting tired but maintained pace.  Scott want to run it in hard so he took off.  I didn't have anything to prove and was no where near a PR so I was just happy enjoying the race. 

When I got to the 0.1 of the 13.1 I found my family and grabbed my son and my daughters had and finished the race with them.  It was one of my favorite race finishes of all time. I finish at 2 hours and 20 minutes and I negative split the race.  I have never run a race that I negative split.  I don't normally neg. split workouts. So this was new to me but I learn how important it is to start a race out slow and finish strong.  Even though I didn't get at PR I learned HOW to race.  I hope that next time I will be able to train a lot more and get better results.  All in all it was a great race.  Here are the pics to prove it.