This morning I ran the 6th annual Helvetia Half Marathon. I ran this in 2002 in preparation for the Chicago Marathon and I'm pretty sure at the time I swore I would never run this one again. It's incredibly hilly, the field is sizeable and composed of both runners and walkers, and I remember the weather that day in 2002 as being really sunny and warm. Being a rural race, there is very little chance for shade.Having said that, I registered two days ago and showed up to run this morning.
Tough, tough course. I was actually having a really good race up until mile 9. At that point, the hills were pretty much over and so was I. All the folks I had passed on hills soon began to pass me. The sun peeked out briefly late in the race for me and there was a lost dog that distracted me (I tried to get him to follow me and he did for about a mile.), but I finished strong in the stadium and that felt good. Overall, it's a well-organized event and a good one for beginning runners to do, but the hills on the course will knock you out. Oh, the hills...
Chip time today: 2:00:23. I wish I could have cut that time by 24 seconds to get under the 2 hour mark, but it was still a good run for me. My time in 2002 was about 2:20.
[edit: I just checked my 2002 Helvetia Half Marathon time and it was actually a 2:32:31. I knew it was a slow one; the sun and hills totally took it out of me that day. Yesterday's race was a full 32 minute improvement. Yippee for me! It feels great to see progress like this. Maybe I will have to run this again someday to see if I can improve even more!]
3 comments:
Just wanted to say congrats on a great race! I have never run Helvetia, but I have heard it is difficult, so good job. Especially cutting off 20 minutes in a year. You are on fire. :-) I think I am running the Sauvie Island half marathon on the 4th. Hopefully we will be at the same race some time! Congrats again, I enjoyed reading your report.
I wanted to run that, but my husband said "No way!" since marathonmommy and I had run the Greenriver Marathon the weekend before. He wasn't concerned so much that I couldn't do it... he just wanted a break from watching the kids on Saturday! I hope you do the Sauvie Island 1/2 so we can meet!
And great job on the time improvement!!
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