Sunday Flashback: Keizer Iris Festival Half Marathon

Not many more races left to go until we're caught up to the present!  So where we last left off, I had just finished the 2010 Portland Marathon.  I suffered incredibly from ITB issues after that race for several months, and made a slow recovery back.  Post soon to come about those struggles.  So this was my first big distance after recovering: the Keizer Iris Festival Half Marathon in Salem, Oregon in May 2011.

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Half Marathon #7 is in the books!  Rachael killed it - way to go!

Ran the Salem Keizer Iris Festival Half Marathon this morning (well, it was a little short unfortunately, the first 2 miles were only about 1.8 miles). 

So Saturday was a fabulous day of golfing, pizza-eating, over an hour of hot-tubbing, and having a few drinks like gentlemen.

 

Sounds like a perfect way to prepare for a race, right? Ha!  

So this morning we were not really feeling like running a half marathon.  I was hoping to break 2 hours, but after I saw the first mile split of 8:38, I decided we were going to at least try to beat Rachael's previous PR of 1:54:42 from almost exactly a year ago at the Couer D'Alene Half we did.  I did not discuss this with her so she may or may not have wanted to kill me for this!  But we SMASHED that PR, even after accounting for the short course.  If it had been a full half marathon the calculator says our real time would have been 1:52:42, still a full 2 minute PR for Rachael!

Rachael's wearing the blue hat and I'm behind that lady's brown hat.  We failed at taking pictures at this race.

Total Time: 1:51:24     Average Pace:  8:37

Splits: 8:38, 8:37, 8:41, 8:35, 8:31, 8:32, 8:30, 8:33, 9:00 (monster steep hill, we ran all the way up but I think the Garmin said 13:00+!, my glutes were on fire afterwards), 8:37, 8:38, 8:47 (pretty strong headwind this whole mile), 8:16

I am actually really proud of these splits!  This is a great time and I am so pleased with it, and look how consistent.  I have never monitored the Garmin so close as today but I was trying really hard to keep right at 8:35 or so, and did pretty good!  Some ankle pain and some ITB stiffness but felt really good overall.  The irises were totally overrated though, with some scenicness in the rolling farmland but otherwise just busy roads, wastewater treatment facilities, and regular neighborhoods to run through.

JMan and Jordan did the 10k - Justin beat his PR from Lincoln City, so dominance across the board!

Yay boys!  Looking so happy to be running. :-)  Ha. 

Afterwards we went and had a delicious (but forever-taking) brunch at Annette's.  Great day!  The race itself wasn't so fabulous though - no medals (what half marathon doesn't have medals?!), an extremely weak spread of food (though I guess there was a pancake breakfast), and very stingy with the water afterwards.

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What perks make a race great?  What lacking perks completely ruin a race for you?  I saw a half marathon must have some sort of "bling".  What do you think?