Lake George Half Marathon - 4/29/12

I prefer trail runs to road races, but with a half marathon being held right in the town where I live, I had to do it.  The Lake George Half Marathon is an almost new event.  This was only the 2nd year for the event. 

I had no idea what to expect from a road race at this distance.  I had done some longer trail runs before, but they are different from the speed of a road race.  I decided to go a little slower than my capacity in the beginning, to make sure I had something left at the end.

The weather was perfect for running.  It was about 35 degrees at race time, but no wind and full sun.  I wore light running pants and two light layers on top and I was fine the whole race. 

The view of Lake George from the race start on Beach Road

I started in about the middle of the pack.  The pace was a little too slow for me in the beginning, so I passed probably 50 people in the 1st mile.  After the 2nd mile I only passed a couple people, and in the last half of the race about a half dozen people passed me.  There wasn't a lot of movement.

 

The steamboats are getting ready for the summer season

I didn't have a watch and there were no time displays, so I had no idea how I was doing.  I felt pretty good at the finish.  It was good that the last 2.5 miles were mostly downhill.

 

The runners are off... and I'm ready!

I finished in a time of 1 hour, 47 minutes and 50 seconds. That put me at a pace of 8 minutes, 15 seconds/mile. I finished 82nd out of 365 racers and 7th out of 12 men in my age category. I was happy with that for my 1st half marathon.

 

20 seconds left to the finish, and I could see it!

At the finish, I had a bottle of water, a Gator Aid, a banana and a couple chunky chocolate chip cookies.  I was then ready to rest and wait for the results to be announced.

 

Resting afterwards with Rev while waiting for the results to be announced

I still like trail races better, but I'll continue to run select road races of interest.



Lake George Half Marathon at EveryTrail

Next weekend, on 5/6/12, I plan to run the much harder 7 Sisters Trail Race in Holyoke, Massachusetts.  It is a littler shorter (12 miles vs 13.1 miles), but it has 3700' of vertical gain and is a real gut buster.  Hopefully I will live to blog about it.