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Plotting on a PR

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I go into everything I take on with passion and a goal of being my best. So no matter the challenge put before me I am looking for a way to do it better than I've ever done it before; in other words I strive to be the best! Competitive: Yes; Passionate: Yup; Driven: That's a give in. Life Has taught me "The 12P's";  "Piss poor planning promotes piss poor performance, piss poor performance promotes pain." in other words If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, oh my... I think that's also a saying but between the two you should catch my drift.

I've planned and put my body through the rigors of training, cross training, yoga, long runs and speed runs all behind me minus one more speed run and a shake out run before I attend  the expo on Friday. So naturally like the athlete I have been for oh so long I'm plotting on the miles I have to conqueror on Saturday. 

My madness is quite logical here is a look. Research was the first step. After my debacle with the Sentara Colonial Half Marathon, I've done extensive research on the course I will be running in Richmond. All my research says that miles 5.5 through 7.5, Bryan Park is the roughest. Many runners advise to be ready for smaller crowds and rolling hills. So mentally I prepared myself for this also setting a goal to be there. 

My overall goal for the race is to hit 2:20 minutes at completion. I had to figure out what that meant for me effort wise as well as how I should be doing these miles. I read several articles on running negative splits and here is what I learned:
  1. Miles 1-3: This is the mental part of the race. Where adrenaline and competitive natures can make or break you. Ideally this part of the race should be ran at 5-10 second slower than your goal pace. My goal pace is 10:41.
  2. Miles 3-11: It's time to start building the speed here. Increase slowly and keep it strong. It will get harder but all you can do is hon in on one runner and stick with them. This is where I will find my newest best friend. He or she will help to keep me at the right pace until its time to explode.  
  3. Mile 12-13.1: It's time to really start racing now. Find someone and beat them. Lock in on them catch them and as you pass them find your next victim. Take them down one at a time. Leave it all on the course. As Richmond's final portion is downhill this should be fun and interesting. i am not knocking her but I am hoping that I don't have to pull out my diving skills like Bahamas Shaunae Miller. Although if I was going for a gold medal I'd dive too.. I'm just being honest lol!
So now that I know how I should run the race now let's see what my goal timing and my previous time look like stacked up against each other : 



Sentara Half  Petersburg Half  Goal Run 
mile 1 10:32 9:59 11:04
mile 2 11:04 11:15 11:02
mile 3 10:36 10:47 10:56
mile 4 11:04 10:35 10:52
mile 5 10:28 10:34 10:49
mile 6 10:58 10:25 10:45
mile 7 11:02 10:53 10:41
mile 8 11:03 10:48 10:37
mile 9 11:25 11:04 10:33
mile 10 12:04 11:23 10:29
mile 11 12:20 11:05 10:25
mile 12 11:56 11:22 10:21
mile 13 11:43 10:56 10:17
finish time:  2:26:56 2:23:34 2:20
overall pace:  11:11 10:59 10:41

Looking at the graph above taught me so much about myself. Adrenaline makes me take off out of the gate. I don't realize it until mile 2 and try to pull back every time, to me that's way too late and I will be focusing on that this time around. Nice and easy and keeping the pace as close to 11:04 as possible.  From miles 6-9 i seem to find a grove and from what I can recall I just roll through these straight into the "WHY THE HELL DID I DO THIS" moment.. aka Mile 9.5-12. I am praying that I can keep that away by running this race right.. Negative splits!!! Mile 13 is a breeze this is where, "I'm so ready to go home" kicks in and I sprint my way, or run with all I got to the finish... neither of my half has it been a sprint but in comparison to how I was doing miles 9-12 it is a great improvement! 

Any tips you can share would be great! It's never too late to learn something new! So comment below or  DM on Instagram @HerbNRun.. either way SHARE!! 


Post the Sentara Colonial Half with my Bestie (Insert dancing girl emoji)
Post Petersburg Halloween half with "boss"

Notice there is always a smile when it's over!!! 

I used this Race Splits Calculator to figure out what I should run to hit negative splits. Its pretty cool! 


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