So the first half marathon of the season is under my belt and its time to evaluate how well my training is progressing. First of all, the race:

The Hollywood Half Marathon was an inaugural race. For a First race I think it was organized well; but I hear that there were a lot of problems for the main wave (I was in the top 150 of ~6000). From what I heard, the main wave ran out of water, so luckily I didn’t have that problem. The only issue I had was with the fact that the only mile marker came at mile 12. With that being said, I think the organizers did quite a good job, especially for a first time race in the middle of Hollywood and Universal Studios.

The race itself was a bear. The start was a 500 foot decline with an average grade of -5. So everyone was blasting it at the start (This of course was not the hard part). The course was definitely not flat; but the real bear was the last mile. The end was a ~550 foot climb with average grade 5. Coming at the end of the race, this stopped a few racers in their tracks. On my way up, I passed numerous racers who were ahead of me; but just couldn’t keep running up the hill and either stopped or started walking up.

Start of the 'climb' to the finish

As for my progress, I posted a 1:37:40. I had a 7:07 min/mile pace up to the climb in the last mile and overall I ended up having a 7:24 min/mile pace. In prepping for this race I mostly followed my P90X2/running hybrid that I have posted not too long ago. This worked out well; but I missed the intensity that I had with my Asylum/P90X/running hybrid.

In saying that, I don’t mean that P90X2 is not intense; but the speed work and volume of ‘Asylum’ is definitely heavy. For the two weeks before the half marathon I made sure to do Asylum’s ‘Speed and Agility’ and ‘Vertical Plyo’ workouts and I also did a 8+ mile run that had at least a 500 foot climb with +6 grade. Altogether, these three things definitely prepared me for the last mile of the Hollywood Half Marathon’s course. A huge testament to the training schedule is the fact that my previous best half marathon time was a 1:40:11 and this was on a completely flat course. Add in the fact that there were numerous hills and a huge climb at the end of this race and the bottom line is that a time of 1:37:40 is a huge improvement and definitely came for the training plan.

So now that this race is done, its time to go back to the drawing board and determine if my training plan can be improved. At first glance, I’m thinking of mixing P90X2, Asylum, and running to make a new hybrid and take on my next half marathon. Keep posted and I will soon post a new schedule on the blog.

At the Finish Line!!!!