Half Marathon PR... or was it 13.4 miles instead??

Saturday was a great day, until I crossed the finish line and read the time on my Garmin... 1:51:47, really? WTF happened? I was on pace, I should have been at 1:49:xx. I was SO frustrated I didn't even bother waiting for official chip times, I headed the 5 blocks to my car without looking back.

Weather forecasting showed possible snow/rain mix for the race as I was checking things out on Friday. I was a little bummed, plus some wind in there and high 30s. Not exactly the ideal forecast I was initially expecting. Saturday morning comes around, pretty much clear skies, no precipitation and at least 39 when the race started. Perfect! This is going to be an awesome race now, I can just feel it!!

I started out strong and kept an eye on my Garmin, the goal was to stay around 8:25 pace for the first 8 miles or so, then try to increase a bit here and there so I could get my first sub 1:50 Half and an awesome PR. For those first 8 miles I was never over an 8:25 pace, ever. And, most often I was below that, ranging from 8:20 to 8:25 and anywhere in between.

The race was an out-and-back, with the turn around point being somewhere near the 6.4 mile marker. My Garmin was pretty much dead-on with the mile markers for the first few miles. I was trying to "run the tangents" as much as possible to ensure I was running as close to the 13.1 as possible. I noticed at mile 7 though, that my Garmin was all of a sudden off... instead of being 7.0 it was showing 7.33... hmm I thought, that was weird. But whatever, I shook it off, no big deal. I'm sure it will even itself out as the race continues.

I hit the 10 mile mark and there were a couple of volunteers cheering and encouraging saying "only 5k to go, you got it". So I was like, hell yes I got this, I cranked it up and busted out close to an 8 min mile for that first mile of the 5k... that was a mistake as I got closer to mile 12, where I started to run out of steam. Those volunteers got me so pumped up, I launched full speed ahead instead of increasing slowly as my coach had recommended. So mile 10 was about an 8:00, I think mile 11 was maybe 8:15, then I really slowed down at mile 12, close to 8:20 again like when I first started. My last mile I was able to kick it up a notch again and blast through the finish line. I was SO excited because I just KNEW that my time was awesome, I KNEW I had managed the required 8:23 per mile to hit 1:49:49.

And then, I stopped my Garmin, tapped to the full time and was heart-broken to see it say 1:51:49. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? I wanted to scream and cry at the same time. I busted my ass on this race, how the hell did I NOT make my goal??? Then I looked at the total distance, 13.47.... What?! 13.47?? that's not anywhere close to 13.1... WTF?! Who set up this route? Who screwed me out of my PR? I was SO UPSET.

So here I am heading to my car, defeated... thinking in my head, my Garmin said I averaged 8:19 per mile, but according to the race it will be more like 8:31, slower than my initial starting goal of 8:30. I continued to my car, re-hydrated, stretched and sat down to send a text to my coach. I was practically in tears as I was composing the message to tell him that I had failed my sub 1:50 goal. I just couldn't believe what had happened.

Later that evening when the official results were posted online, the race officials acknowledged that the distance of the half marathon was actually 13.4 instead of 13.1 and apologized for the mix-up on the location of the turn-around point. They showed our proper pacing on the results, mine being 8:21, however our times are still that of the full distance. So while my pace reflects my goal, the end time does not. There is nothing to be done about this now of course, I'm pleased on how I ran but still extremely disappointed that my race time does not reflect it.

I wonder how often these kinds of things happen? In all of my racing over the last 2.5 years this is a first for me.