Fengyuan Half Marathon

Well, I did it. I hit my goal of a sub-1:40 half marathon. It was a perfect morning. It rained on Friday so all the bad air was gone. The race was near Fu Yang Elementary School (福陽國小）in Fengyuan, which is only a 30 minute drive from my apartment. I woke up at 3:20 to eat and finish getting ready. Lauren and I left the door at 4:50 or so. We knew we were getting close when everyone on scooters had running shoes. We followed the masses and arrived.

Unfortunately for me, the guy who was supposed to take care of registration, didn't. He felt really bad so he gave me his bib. I ran with number 3121 in the 50-55-year old division. After a quick stretch (I'm not a huge fan of long stretching) and a banana, the race started. I was in a terrible starting position, off to the side and a good 50m back. I crossed the starting line at around 40 seconds (official clock time), started my watch, and then was stuck in the slow heard. I knew I wanted sub-1:40, but wanted negative splits. My last half marathon was pretty terrible. I started out way too fast and died at the halfway point. It was a slow haul to the finish. There was no way I was making that mistake again.

The first 12 km was almost completely flat. I really enjoyed running through the village, into the city, and then along the long, wide Fengyuan Road (豐原大道）。I assumed that the course would be two laps (altered slightly) on this great flat course, but I was wrong. The map I looked at a few weeks ago said nothing about elevation or mountains. After the 12km sign, I could see the runners heading East into the mountains. The first little portion was a little uphill, but nothing steep enough to slow me down. Then it came. Mile 9 according to my watch is my first positive split after I got into my groove. I knew if I wanted sub-1:40 it was going to be the battle of the downhill. My slowest point was a 12:30 per mile pace. My calves were screaming at me, but that's when I hit the turnaround point.

The last 2.5 miles were straight downhill. As you can see, I was cruising. 7:15 and 7:03 were my last mile times. I knew I had 16 minutes left and exactly 4 km to go, so I let loose.

I crossed the line with an official time of 1:40:32 and a watch time of 1:39:49. I was 11 seconds away from not hitting my goal. This was seriously a perfect run for me, and that's even factoring the lack of studying or preparing for the course. The speed training workouts have really been paying off.

MILE	TIME	AVG.PACE
1	8:23	8'23"/mi
2	16:05	7'42"/mi
3	23:47	7'42"/mi
4	31:42	7'55"/mi
5	39:33	7'51"/mi
6	47:18	7'45"/mi
7	54:42	7'24"/mi
8	1:02:10	7'28"/mi
9	1:09:56	7'46"/mi
10	1:17:49	7'53"/mi
11	1:25:31	7'42"/mi
12	1:32:46	7'15"/mi
13	1:39:49	7'03"/mi

For those of you who do read Chinese, this is not my name, but I ran with this bib anyways. 

I wanted to smile for my wife and the pictures, but I couldn't.

I love that time, but like my watch's better. 

A half marathon will put some hair on your chest.

My wife took a bunch of artsy photos and has a blog all about traveling in Taiwan. She also documents all my events and does a much better job summarizing than I do. Check her out here.