I return again. I want to start by saying thank you to everyone who offered encouraging words and advice when I dropped in here two weeks ago freaked out about my first half.
@Waiting2goback I'm sorry to hear about your dad, and am glad that you've made your own return to the thread.
The good news is that I have a positive
Race Report to share! September 20 was the Montana Marathon road race at which I ran the half marathon for the very first time, and it was a successful race for me as well as a great learning experience. Officially, my time was 3:30:16 for a pace of 16:03, which is somehow both better and worse than my Garmin time of 3:30:34 for a pace of 15:51--according to Garmin, the course was 0.18 miles too long, which seemed about right when comparing my mile alerts on the Garmin to when I would see the mile marker come up a short while later. I'm wondering if they didn't take the offshoot gravel road on which they staged us into account?? Anyway, my goal pace was 15:40 and I came close enough to that to feel good about it, particularly since I wasn't actually all that confident I could do better than 17:00/mile to begin with.
The course was almost all downhill, with the opening mile being the steepest portion. The first four miles or so were out on the highway (I told my friends--a road race in Montana is the only time you want a stranger to drive you out onto the prairie and leave you there). Things were briefly exciting when we ran past a rifle range I didn't know existed, since I could hear it for half a mile before I could see the sign at its entrance, but since no one else was bothered (and because it's Montana) I guessed that was what I was looking for pretty quickly. Also I saw some goats in someone's yard, and who doesn't like goats? Also there were people out cheering along the highway and that was very nice, especially when I realized later that those same people packed up and moved up along the course as the event went on.
My housemate and I stayed with a local friend and their S.O. that weekend, and the three of them came out and cheered me--with a local navigating they were able to meet me at a bunch of different points along the course, which was a great experience. The course was mostly on roads; there was the previously mentioned highway portion, a bunch of residential streets, and a few sections of walking paths. It ended at a city park, where I made the mistake of not taking a bottle of chocolate milk because I didn't think I could stomach it (ten minutes later my stomach had recovered and I was inhaling every bit of food I could get my hands on). The last few miles were rough; I kept looking at all the nice lawns in front of the houses and thinking about how I could just go lay down and fall asleep right then.
Overall I was happy with their COVID-19 processes. They had split the full and half each into two starting times and made the 10K virtual, so the course was never crowded. Then within each starting time they split us into waves of 50, and because they staged us on an offshoot we had plenty of space to spread out while we waited to start. The buses to the start were running at maybe 1/3 capacity, if even that, with windows open for fresh air. The aid stations were self-serve with cups of water (and sometimes HEED) on the tables--supposedly there was also Hammer gel at the stops with HEED but I never saw any offered. The aid stations weren't spaced quite at the points where the race info packet claimed they would be, so a few times I passed up the opportunity to take one of the gels I was carrying because I thought there'd be another opportunity for water closer to my planned fueling time only to end up waiting longer to fuel than I wanted because the next aid station wasn't where I expected it.
So! Lessons learned?
- Don't rely on the advertised spacing of the aid stations and portapotties to be 100% accurate. If I'm coming up on a fueling time, it's better to take the fuel early than to wait and potentially be very late in taking it.
- Trust! my! goal! pace!--I really think I could have gotten closer to 15:40 overall if I had trusted that I could do it from the start and if I had restrained myself from trying to do more. I had a very fast first mile (thanks, downhill) and at four miles in I literally didn't feel tired at all. That gave me confidence to increase my intervals and try for a faster pace, which was a terrible mistake. My last few miles were very slow and I lost every bit of head start I had against my goal time, and then some.
- The aid stations alone did not give me enough water (this is handy to know since the spacing was similar to what runDisney does for the marathon). My friends brought gatorade with them when they met me along the course and it saved my bacon. For a course like WDW, where I can't have someone meeting me as frequently, I will need to carry at least one small bottle of water or gatorade.
- I was right to bring a couple spare uncrustables to the starting line even after eating a small breakfast before getting on the bus. Ate one during staging and put the other in my bag to send to the finish line, and having one right before and one right after the race was just what I needed.
- I am capable of doing this!! Recovery was rough (for two or three mornings afterward I literally couldn't even get my legs to work to roll over in bed without a bit of warmup first), but it turns out I am fully capable of running a half marathon! So that's nice to know.
This is getting very long, so I'm going to wrap up with some images and then do a second post with my questions for the community.
The view from the bus as we reached the staging area:
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Staging area selfie--we were required to wear our masks on the bus but not during the race; I just left mine on until it was getting close to time to start. Here you can see I also still had my cardigan on; it was a chilly morning and I was glad for bag check to be able to wear something warm without having to carry it later. You can also see here that it was quite windy, which worried me--but it ended up being a tail wind most of the way!
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Back home, my new medal display (it's a tie hanger, haha). The new medal is on the left with ye olde Ice Breaker on the right (Ice Breaker being the three miler I ran in a blizzard last year). This little hanger won't work forever, but for now it's a good way to display my medals without having to build anything. I know I got more medals years ago when I made my first attempts to start running, but I don't know if I kept them, or where they'd be--sadly, I suspect I might have tossed them because I didn't think I was a "real" runner and didn't deserve them (despite having earned them?? Past self, why).
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. I think mine was a combination of fatigue and dehydration. 
