I ran in Morgan Hill Half Marathon – my first – on Sunday. It took me 2:09 hours to finish it.
The city of Morgan Hill is a suburban city about 60 miles south of San Fransisco and about 30 miles south of famed “Silicon Valley”.
I drove down to the city for the packet pick-up the day before race. First impression of the city – that of a quiet, affluent neighborhood has stayed with me. The Expo itself was rather small but all the local sports shops were well represented. With registration for me and my friends done, I rode back home – bro0ding over a 1000 ft elevation gain on hilly 6 miles out-and-back route.
On the race day, I woke up early – at 4 am, had a cup of tea and an apple on our way to Morgan Hill – about hour-and-half before race started. With a quick visit to porta-potties(no long queues) and we were all ready.
The horn sounded and we were off. I was in 9-10 min/Mi group – way back but still managed to clear the start line after about a minute. After snaking through some farmlands (ponies came out to the fence to take look at all the brightly costumed group of runners we were 🙂 ) and past some gorgeous suburban villas and vineyards, the route began a steep ascent of about 5 miles. After cresting the hill near water reservoir, we began the descent. My knees definitely “knew” we were going downhill – we descended about same 1000 ft (which we climbed over 5 miles) in mile-and-a-half!!
Sun was now on our backs and the route snaked past flat, arid land and a high traffic road. So the next 3-4 miles were boring. Anyway, the route took us back through residential neighborhood and after mile or so, we crossed the finish line.
With the swag medal and water handed out by tireless volunteers, we trooped down the food stall. Chicken burrito, fresh fruits and bagels – I simply loved the post race arrangements !!
Overall, this was a small but very well arranged race. The route was fun and decently quick. I ran better in the race than in the practice runs – which was the whole objective. By running with the pacers, keeping my pace around 9:40 min/mile proved easy. This was my first half marathon race. It was also lot of fun. Given the sub-2:15 time I did, I now understand the how beneficial those long runs were for me. I could comfortably predict my finish time within minute of the actual race time.
Here are my splits.
- 07:01:18
- 00:39:58
- 01:38:56
- 02:09:23
- I am looking forward to next year’s race.