Mayberry Half Marathon Race Report

So a month or so ago, I kind of decided I would run a half marathon. I haven't run one since summer of 2011, and I felt like I had been training relatively well recently. So I semi trained on a modified Hanson half marathon plan, kind of did my own thing, ran with Jenny some and would just see how it went. We signed up for a race in Mt. Airy (home to Andy Griffith) and the website was a bit lacking in information about the course. It did say there were a couple hills, and luckily I did find a mapmyrun version of the course two days before the race. And well, yes, there were hills as evidence on the race shirt:

Jenny and I knew it would be mainly uphill the first 2 1/2 miles and then mainly flat and then there was a good uphill at the end. But you really don't know how hard the hills are until you run them. It. Was. Tough.

I had set out some goals with my A-goal of breaking 1:40, B-goal of breaking 1:42 and C-goal of breaking 1:45. Jenny and ran together and got through the first set of hills no problem and through the straight part, but I was hurting. We were both on track to break 1:40, and around mile 9 1/2 I told her to just go ahead, I didn't think I could keep up at that pace anymore. I ended up pretty dehydrated which was totally my fault, but I just kind of fell apart the last few miles.  Here is a breakdown of the course profile-and some of the hills were at 10% grade, and then my splits.

Ended up running 1:42:08 which was good enough for 3rd place overall, and Jenny smashed her goal and ended up running 1:39. I'm so lucky to have such an awesome training partner, we are so evenly matched with our paces. Although, I assume not for long, as she is just going to blow by me soon!