On May 4th I ran my 17th (I think?) half marathon at the Frederick Running Festival. I’ve been registered for this race 4 times. I ran in 2009 as my second half marathon ever. In 2020 I signed up but it got canceled. I ran it in 2022 and signed up again this year because its not too far from where I live and it’s a good course. While things didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted, it was still a good day!
Frederick Running Festival Half Marathon Training
I started training at the beginning of February. At the time I felt like I had lost all my fitness because I had spent a few months recovering from my fall marathon and then I got COVID in January. I started working with Coach Laura to help me come up with a smart plan to get ready for a half in 12 weeks after being sick. My training went really well. I was able to do every run and got all my workouts done outside. I had almost no niggles the entire training cycle other than a little SI joint sensitivity early on.
I did my last longest run when I was away in Texas, and then right as I was starting the taper I came down with a horrible stomach bug. Due to my travel schedule I didn’t miss any runs that week, I just shifted them a bit to give myself a few more days to recover. A week or so before the race we decided that 1:44-1:45 was a good goal based on my training.
Race Week
As I entered race week it seemed like everything started to fall apart. Early in the week the weather looked perfect: low 50s and clear. By Thursday the forecast changed and we would be in a pattern of severe thunderstorms all weekend. It looked like Sunday morning would be in the mid 60s and very humid with a chance of rain. I had only done one easy run in humid weather this year and was not at all acclimated to warm weather. Laura and I decided to adjust my goal to be 1:46-1:47, and to really just adjust my pace based on how I was feeling that day.
I also started to notice my right piriformis a bit throughout the week. It wasn’t painful but it has acted up during 3 out of 3 of my last half marathons since 2022. I got in to see my PT on Friday and he dry needled it which seemed to help. Funny enough, I also learned he would be at the race cheering on his wife who was running.
On Saturday morning I woke up feeling very run down. I wasn’t sure if it was allergies or a cold, or maybe a combination. By that evening I had a bit of a cough. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t run, but I knew I would need to monitor how I felt come Sunday morning. I also wanted to get a good night’s sleep Friday night.
Well, you know how that goes. At 12:30 am my daughter woke up crying. (It’s possible she wasn’t feeling great either). Even though we got her back to sleep a little after 1, was awake until after 2:30 with my mind racing. I still had a cough. There was a downpour outside. I was missing precious sleep. How could I possibly run this race in 5 hours?
At some point I fell back to sleep and woke up to my alarm at 4:30. Overall I felt ok, so I said let’s do this.
Frederick Running Festival: Race Morning
I made some coffee to bring in the car and ate a 1/2 of a bagel with PB while I got ready. I left a little after 5 am to make the 50 minute drive to Fredrick. There was a light mist but it wasn’t raining too hard. Parking was easy and I got a spot right near the start/finish area by 6:10.
I stayed in the car and ate pop tarts and drank water while I got myself organized. Around 6:30 I headed to use the bathroom and warm up. It actually felt a little chilly while I was standing around and I thought maybe the weather won’t be so bad after all!
Miles 1-4
I lined up a little late and had to rush to get to the right corral. We started right at 7am. I was a little boxed in during the first mile and felt like I could have run faster, but I also knew it was better to start out a bit slow. By mile 2 I was already feeling the humidity and my effort felt hard. Everything felt harder than it should for running at that pace. I tried to just focus on 1 mile at a time.
The course has some rolling hills and I feel like it’s a fair course for the most part. It’s much less hilly than where I run in Baltimore. During most of the course there was good crowd support. I even saw my PT about 3 times on the course!
Miles 5-10
Around mile 5 it stopped raining and felt warmer. I stepped in a huge puddle around this time which was annoying. At this point my goal was to just maintain the same effort and not worry much about my paces. I had autolap on my watch turned off so I manually lapped it at each mile.
I also did well with fueling throughout the race. The last time I ran this my stomach turned early on and I struggled to fuel. This time I had an alert on my watch to fuel every 22 minutes, which meant I took 4 Huma Gels. I also carried a handheld with Skratch, knowing I would need to focus on hydration.
Miles 11-13.1
Usually the biggest hill of this race is at mile 11. I knew they had adjusted the course due to construction. After I hit mile 12 and we hadn’t run up the hill I wondered if we wouldn’t have to run it. But then it came at mile 12.5, the worst point in the race for a big hill. I had to slow down a bit to get up it but I knew once I got to the top the race would be almost over.
I also started to notice that darn piriformis cramping up around mile 12. It wasn’t terrible but definitely annoying.
The race ends on the race track at the Fairgrounds which is very soft gravel. And when it’s been raining for 2 days, that gravel becomes like mud. So the last portion of the race around the track was difficult. I pushed as hard as I could but it was hard to get good turnover on that soft surface.
I had decided earlier to aim for sub 1:50 and I got through the finish in 1:49:48!
Frederick Running Festival Post Race
After I finished I walked around for a bit and drank some water. None of the food seemed appealing so I figured I would drink my Core Power in my car. I saw my PT and chatted briefly and then headed to my car. It took me a bit to find it which was not ideal! I had brought some dry clothes so I changed in the car before leaving. It felt so good to take off my wet shoes and socks and put on sandals!
On the drive home I processed the race a bit. I had a range of feelings at the time, so it was good to work through some things. When I told my husband about the race he pointed out that I ran a pretty good time with so much working against me. (He is usually pretty honest with me about races and will call me out if I don’t push myself when I can.)
On my way home I grabbed an egg sandwich and coffee. My parents had taken the kids out for a bit while I was gone so when I got home I was able to shower and unpack which was nice, since the rest of the day was pretty busy.
Frederick Running Festival Half Marathon Race Reflections
In the days that followed I still did not feel 100% and it become more clear that my health may have impacted how I felt on race day. I don’t think that I was so sick that I should not have run; but I am glad I adjusted my paces once I realized how hard they were feeling.
I am frustrated that I didn’t get to truly test my fitness and see how I could run on a good day. I am also proud that I pushed through and ran a smart race. My next race is a 10 miler in June, but I can’t imagine the weather will be much better for that!
Not every race day will be perfect, and we can only control what we can control. I was reminded to enjoy the process and do the best I can with what I am given on race day. Over the past year I have really started to lean into long term goals, and seeing each training cycle/race as a building block to something bigger. Even though this race didn’t go as planned I still built fitness during this training cycle which will carry over to the next one.
Final thoughts
The Frederick Running Festival Half Marathon is a great event with good crowd support and a fair course. The weather tends to be rainy, and could be one of the first warm days of the season. Everything was organized and ran smoothly!
Have you ever been sick or had terrible weather for a goal race?
Do you ever have a hard time sleeping before a race?
You may also like:
Philadelphia Distance Run 2024 Race Recap
Annapolis Running Festival Half-Marathon 2024 Race Recap
Half-Marathon Training Tips for Beginners
Now it’s time for the Runners’ Roundup! Link up your running and fitness posts below! Join myself, Coach Debbie Runs, Confessions of a Mother Runner and Runs with Pugs to post your favorite running tips, experiences, race and training recaps, workouts, gear, and coaching ideas.
Well done, Lisa!
This race recap is a masterclass in perseverance. You had every excuse to DNS, but instead you laced up, adapted, and absolutely nailed the execution. That final muddy stretch on the race track sounds like a cruel joke, but you still pulled off a sub-1:50!
I also love how you’re viewing this race as part of the bigger picture – fitness gained, lessons learned, and still hungry for more.
Do you think you’ll tweak anything for your June 10-miler, especially if the humidity kicks up again?
Thank you so much! I am hoping to acclimate to the warmer weather by then, but otherwise my coach wants me to recover from the half and ease back into running. I’ll do some tune up workouts but mostly just count on my half training carrying over for the 10 miler.
I’ve heard this is a well organized good race. We can only control what we can and the weather is always a wild card. You ran a really well race at a great pace. Way to push through when not feeling 100 percent
Honestly, with all that, you ran a great race. I can’t say I would have gone out in pouring rain at all. Or I would have expended a lot of energy being mad about it lol. It’s always like that, isn’t it… you get excited over a big race, and then everything moves in place against you. Sigh.
You’ll get the next one! Promise! Well done!
Well done! How cruel to put in a hill at that point (the Birmingham Marathon in 2017 had a sharp hill at 26 miles and no one has ever forgiven them for it!) and a horrible surface to finish. I think you should be really proud of yourself.