Westbrook Half Marathon

Emma is training for a road half marathon in a few months and we had planned to go for a run on the course this Thursday, but with the impending snow storm we decided to get the run in a day earlier and stick to local roads. Emma had worked an overnight shift the night before, so after about 3 hours of sleep we headed out on a route through Westbrook that I had mapped out, with the intention of this being an easy paced run. I'm thinking about jumping in the race with her, although I haven't committed to any real training for it yet. My bigger goal is the Peak 50 miler in May, and I don't see the point in spending too much time doing faster road runs as part of my ultra training. I'll probably just end up going along to support Emma.

The temperature was dropping and the wind was picking up throughout the course of our run so we ended up picking up the pace just a bit in an effort to keep warm. A few decent hills along the way also helped to keep us warm, at least the uphill parts. The down were pretty chilly.

We kept the pace conversational and were both surprised to be ticking off the miles at right around an 8 minute pace. It was a little faster than we had expected but the level of effort felt right so we went with it. I hope that Emma is able to get some of her speed back, so far things are shaping up pretty well for her.

I think it's about time for me to get some new road shoes, I've been doing most of my road runs (not that there are that many) in a pair of Saucony Grid Sinisters I bought back in January 2009. The only other pair of road shoes I've bought since then are Saucony Type A4, I think back in the summer of 2010, but they're a little too light and breathable (6.4 oz) for winter running. I think I might check out the Saucony Kinvara, I've heard a lot of good things about that shoe from other folks.

time: 1:45:42
distance: 13.16 miles
pace: 8:02

weather: upper 20's, temperature dropped and wind picked up