Race Report: Napa Valley Silverado Half Marathon

Posted by Chen

Today I ran my 14th half at the Napa Valley Silverado Half Marathon.  Going into this race, I had no idea what my plan was. I had originally planned to practice marathon goal pace for Boston (optimistically, that would be ~7:50-7:55, ish), but then I decided to view the race results from last year a couple nights ago and saw that the winning time in my age group was right around my PR. So obviously I started to toy with the idea of trying to place in my age group because I've never been able to do so in a half and also because that's totally a logical decision to make when you're two weeks away from a marathon.

A few things made me skeptical that I could actually race well, though, one being that my shake-out 7 miler yesterday felt alarmingly sluggish, and two being that I knew the course and knew it wasn't nearly as "flat and fast" as the race directors were advertising. Three, in trying to do my shake-out run and also pack and also drive over to my friend's place in time to pick some people up for the ride up to wine country yesterday morning, I didn't end up eating breakfast or lunch, save for a couple oranges and some handfuls of high-fiber cereal (which is HIGHLY unusual for me. The not eating part. Not the high-fiber part. Fiber rocks my world.). Four, the highs were forecasted to reach into the 80s this weekend, and if there's anything that will bring me to my knees in a race, it's heat. And lastly, I spent most of yesterday lounging poolside with the other ladies who would be running with me, which left me mildly-to-moderately dehydrated by the end of the day. So really, all signs pointed to me bonking, quitting, hopping off the road, and hobbling into a winery instead. Still, I figured I would just start the race at race pace and wait to see what happened. Because logical decision-making!

I prefer my "flat and fast" routes to have at least 3 dozen fewer hills

Race morning was pretty uneventful, though I didn't have time to do the 3+ mile warm-up I had wanted to do to bring my long run total up to 16, which is the distance that I normally run 2 weeks out from a full 'thon.  I wasn't too concerned, though, and figured I could run it later if I really wanted to. One thing I found comical about the race site was the "Anticipated start time of 8:00am."  I prefer more commitment, please.  Otherwise, how am I supposed to properly time my rigorous porta-potty visits???  Luckily, the race only started 5 minutes late, and we were off.

I started out too fast (of course), but I also had in the back of my mind that this route was an out-and-back with a net downhill first half.  Negative splitting went out the window early on, and I figured I would just go out at tempo effort and then try to hang on once we turned around (rookie move). My legs have been feeling more tired than usual ever since we ran the Oakland marathon a couple weekends ago, and I could definitely feel some residual fatigue during the first few miles, which did not bode well for the uphill return.  I eventually settled into a more reasonable pace while still trying to take advantage of the relatively long downhill portions.

First half splits (caveat: my Garmin is getting old and has been falling behind lately, so it ended up measuring the course as being quite short today - 12.96 miles.  I get the feeling the course was actually short, but probably not by as much as my Garmin said):
1: 7:24 (dumb)
2: 7:28 (still dumb)
3: 7:46
4: 7:39
5: 7:38
6: 7:39

We hit the turnaround point, and, as expected, everything felt significantly harder on the way back. I was temporarily distracted as I ran by all of my friends who were running the race as well, but once that excitement died down (which also happened to be when it started to get hot out), I quickly realized that I had a lot of work ahead of me.  I think at some point I confirmed that a PR was well out of the question, so I let myself ease up a bit and settled into marathon goal pace, though that sadly still felt like a tempo effort given the terrain. It also didn't help that I had to go to the bathroom (in THAT way) for the last few miles - this has always been my nightmare, but luckily things stayed in place until after I finished. Have I mentioned that I talk about poop a lot? I'm happy that I didn't totally throw in the towel and only had 1 mile above 8:00 pace, but I was a little irked that I let myself go out too fast, resulting in a bit of a slogfest on the way back. The only nice part about the 2nd half was that either because of my old, dying Garmin or because the course was actually short, the finish line came out of nowhere and the pain was over sooner than expected. I crossed the finish line in 1:39:43 (just about a minute slower than my PR), relieved to be done.

2nd half splits:
7: 7:37
8: 7:43
9: 7:54
10: 7:51
11: 7:43
12: 8:03 (everything is terrible)
13: 7:38
13.1: N/A (my Garmin measured so short that this tenth didn't exist)

I joined my friends who were waiting at the finish and cheered the rest of our friends in, which is always a great time. I also learned while waiting that I had somehow placed first in my age group, with a bottle of wine being the prize (yay booze!). Last-minute-goal accomplished :). So, while I ran a pretty stupid race, I still had a great time overall and was very happy to have spent a beautiful weekend up in wine country.

My age group prize - Sharkfest Bloody Red. I've never heard of it, but I'm sure I will enjoy it thoroughly. In one sitting.

And as for that 3+ mile warm-up I didn't get to run, I managed to squeeze in an easy 4.5-miler once I got home from wine country 6 hours later, bringing my total up to 17.5 (ish) for the day. There's a strong chance I will regret adding that mileage as I'm running from Hopkinton to Boston in two weeks, but what you didn't know is that I also plan to replace running with competitive baguette eating during that time, so hopefully I will have recovered and replenished my glycogen stores by then. (Except for that 10 mile race I have next Sunday). (Yes, I am even dumber than you thought).