I ran in Morgan Hill Half Marathon – my first – on Sunday. It took me 2:09 hours to finish it.
\nThe city of Morgan Hill is a suburban city about 60 miles south of San Fransisco and about 30 miles south of famed “Silicon Valley”.
\nI 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\u00a0 done, I rode back home – bro0ding over a 1000 ft elevation gain on hilly 6 miles out-and-back route.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \ud83d\ude42 ) and past some gorgeous suburban villas and vineyards,\u00a0 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”\u00a0 we were going downhill – we descended about same 1000 ft (which we climbed over 5 miles) in mile-and-a-half!!
\nSun 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.<\/p>\n
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 !!<\/p>\n
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.
\nHere are my splits.<\/p>\n