A fun start to the 2024 season in Oak Island. I decided to do a Half Marathon to try and accomplish a one of my goals of breaking 1:20 over the 13.1 miles. This didn’t happen today, but it was fun trying 🙂
3rd Place Overall, 2nd Place Overall Male.
Race Breakdown
I think I started out at the right pace around 2 – 3 secs faster per mile than planned, I knew going out would be down wind, and coming back was into the wind, so I tried to bank a little bit of time for that. I think I didn’t anticipate the wind being that strong. At the time 2nd place was slowly pulling a gap which also wasn’t motivating, but then seeing that I was making up some time on 3rd place kept me pushing. So mentally it was a little tough on my way back in as once I passed 3rd place I didn’t think I could catch 2nd. With about a mile or mile and a half to go, I took a look back and had dropped 3rd, I also realized I was not going to make 1:20, so backed off a little.
We got in pretty late on Friday so not knowing/driving the course kept me guessing a little as to what/where to expect turns and how much was left. In more serious races for me, I think I need to reec’y the whole course in the future.
Overall, I am little bummed I missed my goal, but also in the bigger scheme of things know I could do a little better being 100% fresh if I was not training for IM Texas, so it was a nice weekend to get away and do something different.
Also I did eat 1 gel on the course which was OK, 1 cup of water. I probably could have done without both of them. I think my diet leading up to the race was maybe a bit too carb heavy for that sort of race.