GHS Centennial Half-Marathon Race Report

With 5 weeks remaining before the Boston Marathon and days quickly ticking past, I ran my final preparatory half-marathon on Saturday. The race was the GHS Centennial Half-Marathon, celebrating the centenary of Greenville Hospital Systems, not of the race which was in its first year. The course began in Travelers Rest, SC and ran 10 miles along the Swamp Rabbit Trail to Greenville. The trail is an old railroad converted into a multiuse paved recreational trail and has a slight decline over the course we ran. As soon as we entered Greenville, however, we hit a mile long climb up around the baseball stadium before descending back through downtown, up another climb, and into the finish line.

I started out comfortably, but kept in mind how my Achilles was feeling having not been able to run most of the week because of it. I lead through the first mile in 5:45 and a group of three quickly established at the front. This select group included Fleet Feet runner Jon Stoehr, elite triathlete Daniel Moss, and me. Sensing my effort level rise slightly too high, I backed off and the others slowly opened up a gap on me. When I say slowly, I mean by approximately 10 seconds per mile… which may seem like a reasonable gap, unless you’re running on a trail that has multiple sections straight enough to see a minute or two ahead of you. At 6 miles, I was about 50 seconds back but could still clearly see the runners ahead of me because, in reality, I was still only a little more than 200 meters behind.

I hit 10k in 36:26, yet another second fastest 10k after having run 36:50 and 36:47 splits in Myrtle Beach 3 weeks ago. My PR of 36:02 seems to be in the crosshairs, but should hold up for a while given that I don’t have any 10k races planned in the foreseeable future.

The second half of this race flattened out substantially before the climbs in Greenville, and my pace slowed significantly. I never felt completely fried, but 5:50s turned into 6:10s and I began rapidly giving time back against 6:00 pace. A streak of 6:04, 6:09, 6:14, and 6:10 for miles 7-10 brought me through 10 miles in 59:49 and an 11^th mile of 6:18 left me 7 seconds in arrears of the round pace. Mile 12 was mostly the long climb through town, so I was glad to see my pace drop to 6:17 and with a little help from some downhill in mile 13 I hit 6:02 before flying into the finish line covering the extra 200m in 38 seconds.

The big difference between my PR in Myrtle Beach and this race was my physical and mental ability to respond to being caught around 10k. I definitely felt more comfortable in Myrtle Beach for the first half, and my calves did feel a little tight this weekend, but latching on to another runner running the pace I need to over the second half definitely accounts for all of the 80 second difference between the two races.

Overall I placed 5^th and won the 20-24 age group in a personal #2 time of 1:19:03. Ignoring my blowup in Miami, I’ve averaged 1:18:58 for the other 3 half marathons this year, and even including my dismal 1:30:31, I’ve averaged under 1:22 for the 4 races!