THE ING GA ROCKED!! Or better yet, I rocked the ING Georgia Half marathon in 2010! My training is paying big dividends already. I ran my PR (personal record) of 2:26:39, shattering my previous best of 2:32:16 last year in Miami by almost 6 minutes!
Not only did I run my fastest race ever, but check out these facts:
- This course was much hillier than the flat courses of Miami and Disney, my 2 previous PRs
- I took MORE walk breaks, at a 3/1 run/walk interval for the first 10 miles, then ran the last 3 straight out (more on this later).
- I finished the last half of the race faster than the first half, which is what you are supposed to do! To be more specific, my first 8 miles averaged 11.6 minutes per mile, while my last 5 miles averaged 10.6 minutes per mile. I couldn't get the actual half-way calculation since ING only had the 8 mile split.
- I felt great during and after the race, and was hardly sore the next couple of days. This is a rarity for me. I'm usually very sore, because my training in the past has been less than consistent.
So, I felt very good about this race, especially because I didn't go all out, since it was a secondary race. I did, as mentioned earlier, ran the last 3 miles straight out with no walk breaks, but that is because I had so much left in the tank from my 3/1 run/walk intervals.
So why the 3/1 run/walk intervals? I saw Jeff Galloway speak at the Expo on Saturday. though I've read his books and firmly believe in his run/walk/run philosophy, I have still utilized it mostly during training. I used to do 4/1 intervals during training, but during a race, I would run a mile, then walk for 1 minute. I decided that I had nothing to lose by taking more walk breaks and testing out his theory, and boy was he right on. I somehow thought that maybe it only worked for "real" runners, or those at their peak, but it really did work for me. So now, I'm planning on using the 3/1 interval not only during training, but during my full marathon in June.
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