Applefest Half Marathon

I ran the Applefest Half Marathon in Hollis, NH on Saturday (10/4) in 74:09 (5:40/mile average) and placed 3rd overall (results). I actually got some press for the effort! It was my first race of the season, my first half marathon ever and a very challenging course so I am not disappointed with the time, but I am not pleased either. I was expecting to run closer to 72 minutes based on workouts, but you have to see the race profile to really appreciate the course (downloaded from my Suunto T6):


Each of the red dots at the bottom of the figure are the mile splits (and 20km split). The splits were: 5:24, 5:53, 5:30, 5:29, 5:39, 5:32, 5:33, 5:40, 5:27, 5:59, 5:48, 5:38, 5:53, 0:37. I went through 5 miles in 27:57, 10 miles in 56:10 and 20km in 1:09:59. Based on the 6 mile split, 10km was probably around 34:52 so the second 10km was not too bad (~35:07). I did not sleep well the three nights before the race because of nerves. I was not anxious about the competition, rather it was racing for over 13 miles and knowing what kind of hills lay in wait for us. I could feel that my legs were a bit sluggish in the warm-up, so I figured that I would take a fairly conservative approach to the first half of the race. I felt really good through mile 7 or 8 before my legs started to feel heavy and I started to lose touch with the leaders. I now know that the down hills pounded the crap out of my quads and pretty much set me up for a miserable last 3-4 miles. Overall, it was a good learning experience and I now know that I have to exercise much more patience for these longer races. I have to lose the miler mentality.


On Sunday (10/5) I ran 21 miles in 2:27:20 and my quads were VERY sore. This is when I realized that the down hills were what did me in.

AM: 10.1 (1:09:48) Very sore quads this morning so just going easy to work it out.

PM: 6 (41:51) My quads are still stiff and sore, but they feel a lot better in the afternoon than they do in the morning.