Jazz Half Marathon

When I signed up for this race in early March, my training was going really well.  I intended to challenge my PR on this fast, flat course in New Orleans. Two months later after completin.g back to back halfs, my training fell off the side of a cliff with work and later moving taking huge chunks of my time.  Add in achilles tendonitis in both legs and my weekly mileage dropped to single digits.

Since moving back to Louisiana early August, I had logged one weekend long run along with 2 half marathons prior to this race.  Since the Gulf Coast 1/2 3 weeks prior to this weekend, I had 4 5 mile weekday runs.  With all that said, I was totally pleased with my time of 1:55 in this race.  The weather was to my liking with start temps in the lower 50s.  There was a brisk 10-20 mph wind but with the course being looped, there were head, tail and cross winds.  I definetely can deal with wind better than heat.

The start and finish were moved to near Lafayette Square this year.  This gave more room for the post race party; otherwise, the course was the same as last year's course.

With the Louisiana Marathon and Half 11 weeks away, I'm ready to start training properly for this upcoming race.  I'm now officially down to one house and am pretty much done with getting settled in so no excuses for those weekend long runs!

Thanks to the New Orleans Saints 55 point beatdown on the Indianapolis Colts, I'm now registered for Rock N Roll New Orleans in early March.  I don't think competitor envisioned a 55 point spread when coming up with their promotion for discounted registration the day after Saints games.  $1 per point netted me a 1/2 marathon registration under $40.  The savings have been capped at $21 for future discounts.

Gulf Coast Half Marathon Louisiana Northshore

After traveling 4465 miles in straight line distance for the Bupa Great North Run last month, this past Sunday's half marathon in Fontainebleau State Park was a wake up in your own bed event for me. 

With 1149 finishers Sunday, the field was much smaller than the 54,000 runners registered for the GNR.  I am favoring smaller events these days; there were plenty of runners around me the entire race.

Estimating a 12 week intermediate half marathon training plan at 225-250 miles, I logged just over 100 miles for the 12 weeks leading up to this race.  The lack of training came back to haunt me around the 8 mile mark, a little earlier than last months GNR but understandable given the warmer weather conditions and abundant sunshine.

All in all, it was a great race for my 61st half marathon.  It was my first race in Louisiana outside of New Orleans. 

Next up is the Jazz half in New Orleans the last Saturday this month.