Juliana Moves

I did it! I broke my half marathon PR yesterday! I am still so excited and so ridiculously sore. I set my original PR in February 2014 at the Austin Half Marathon. I was expecting to run 10:30 min/miles and just had the time of my life and ran 9:33 min/miles instead! The exact time is lost to history because I wasn’t using Strava and can’t find the old results online, but my finish was something like 2:05:15. When I decided I wanted to go after that PR, I set a goal to do anything less than 2:05 or a 9:30 min/mile. 

I picked the Ashland Half Marathon because it was close to Richmond and seemed like a nice, small local race. I followed this Oiselle plan for 10 weeks and took speed training seriously. My body did not love the speed work – LOL. Granted, I did go from 0 to 100 with it and it was the dead of summer, but I still sort of think my body isn’t built for speed. Regardless, by the end of my training I actually thought I might be able to get closer to 2 hours flat. A small part of my brain thought, if it was a really good day, I could potentially even go sub 2. 

Admittedly, I didn’t feel like my best and most refreshed self going into it on Saturday morning but I did still feel pretty good. When I did the Richmond Marathon last November I approached it feeling ready to run and bursting with energy. This go around, I struggled with my carb load and generally still felt slightly worn down, but was still ready to put in the work! And put in the work I did.

My buddy Frank was my pacer and thank god because I think I might’ve slowed down or walked without him there to keep me honest. The race started at 6:30 am and the weather was as freakishly nice as you can reasonably ask for in August – like 63 degrees! The goal was to go out conservatively in the 9:30-9:40 min/mile range and then to save some energy to really throw down at the end. The beginning of the race was flat so our first two miles were 9:21 and 9:06 – oops! We never hit the conservative range until a big hill at mile 12… Oh well! I was still able to take deep breaths and sing along to my music a bit. At around mile 4, the course turned into rolling hills and it was hard. None of these hills would even be something to blink at on a regular run, but when you’re working hard to maintain a certain pace? Less than pleasant. We ran through the countryside, which was fun though! 

I stayed diligent about eating and took gels at miles 3 and 6. As we came up on mile 8, we passed an aid station and I desperately needed the Portapotty. This is where my finish time gets a bit of a discrepancy. With the bathroom break, my chip time is 2:04:28 – still a PR! I stopped my watch because I wanted to know my moving time, so my watch has 2:02:56. Considering we both used the bathroom, I’m impressed how quickly we were in and out of that aid station! Regardless, we kept moving along and came up on the big hills at miles 10.5 – 12. 

At this point I was gritting my teeth to keep my pace and was doing all the positive self talk I could muster. I told Patrick after that it was a very real mental training exercise and I thought about how the mental fortitude would translate well to MMT in 2025. My heart rate was very high and I was just grinding. I wanted to slow down so badly! I genuinely just kept telling myself things like: “you are strong. you are trained for this. get gritty. it’s supposed to hurt.” I could feel self doubt trying to inch into my brain but I think I kept it pretty controlled.

Again, the hills were not actually that intense but they were long and I was still trying not to slow down too much. When we got to the top of the last hill, I couldn’t get my heart rate back down and knew I needed to take a moment to reset. We walked for about 15 seconds and I actually felt a little woozy… Rather than panic about that, I just started to run again! And drank more Nuun of course. 

For the final chunk, I really just put my head down and focused on getting it down. At some point I lost Frank and could not spare the energy to turn my head to see where he was. To finish, you turn a corner and run straight towards the finish line… Which is actually at least still a quarter of a mile away. That long stretch was cruel. It took everything in me to keep pushing and to not slow down or walk altogether. I knew that I was not going to feel great when I crossed that finish line. 

And finally, I did it! I was so relieved. I got my medal and a water bottle and immediately found Patrick and needed to sit down. Frank came in maybe 30 seconds after me and Erica, who had signed up 15 hours before, finished maybe 10 minutes later! My whole body is sore now. From my calves to my entire back. It’s satisfying to know I pushed as hard as I did.

Naturally, there’s some small part of me that wonders if I could get to 2 or sub-2. I only did 8 real weeks of speed work, so maybe with a longer training period I could pull it off. However, even during the race I could recognize that all I could really think about was maintaining my pace. I didn’t get to enjoy the actual running and community part as much as I would’ve liked! And, I almost always get a little emotional coming through a finish line, as I reflect on what running means to me and the joys of completing a goal. Yesterday? Zero emotion. I was just trying to stay on my feet until I could find somewhere to sit. 

It was just such a different experience! I don’t think I’d want to “race” like that all the time, but I am very glad I did it. It was character building in a wildly different way than trail running or ultras are. 

Afterwards we all went to brunch and then Erica, Patrick, and I went to the Virginia Capitol! I’ve been wanting to go there since the Richmond Marathon last year, but we’ve always been up to other things when we are in RVA. Gingerly walking around the Capitol was the perfect post-race activity.

Now I am excited to take some time off to recover and relax and have other fun before I dive into training once again! Here’s to taking down a 10 year PR and the joy of running!

Love,

JN