I ran a race on Sunday called Chasing the Unicorn. It’s supposed to be a fast, flat course to help runners achieve a PR or qualify for Boston. The Unicorn is a reference to the Boston logo.
It was a fun race, but I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped. I finished in 3:53, which was pretty far off from my BQ time of 3:35. Here are a couple of reasons I think it didn’t go so well:
- My first half was really strong – maybe too strong. I needed to run 8:12 minutes/mile to get to my goal time, and I did 8:02s for the first 6.5 miles. I was still on pace at the half marathon – just around 8:15s, which is close, but going so fast early on may have cost me later.
- It was really, absurdly hot. You might remember this excellent analysis on what it would take to run a 2-hour marathon (if you haven’t read this, do now). Optimal race temperature for elite athletes is 35*F, and for amateur/middle pack athletes is 45*F. When we started, it was 71*F. When finished, it was 84*F. The humidity in this race, especially in the second half, was really challenging.
- I probably wasn’t recovered from my ultra two weeks ago. Apparently you need longer than two weeks after a 36-mile race to get back to peak running form. I wasn’t feeling super strong the week leading up to this race – nothing like I’d felt the week leading up to Moosalamoo – so I’d had an idea that Unicorn wasn’t going to be as fast as I’d liked. That said, it’s always important to push hard – no excuses.
The results: 3:53 finish, as mentioned. Pretty miserable splits. I came in 85th out of 179 finishers, and 21st out of 58 women, which is surprisingly non-terrible for how terrible my performance was. 23 runners (more than 10% of the field) did not finish, so it was a tough day. I feel good about my overall effort level during this race, even if the results weren’t what I would have liked.
I’m using this race as motivation for the next one. I’ve got New York coming up in Novemeber, then Northface 50-miler in SF in December, and possibly one more before the end of the year. I’ve never used a training schedule before – a legitimate one that I didn’t just make up on the fly – so I may try that for the next 10 weeks. Let’s see how it goes …
BRB Running 
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Because of the double out-and-back a lot of people, realizing they aren’t going to BQ decide to DNF at half way