Race Report: 2023 Ave of the Giants Half
05 Jun 2023 fitness
Summary
- What: 2023 Avenue of the Giants Half Marathon
- When: Sunday, May 7, 2023
- Where: Humboldt County, CA
- Distance: Run 13.1M
- Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9029598338
- Finish time: 1:30:46
Discussion
About a month ago, Christine and I drove up to Humboldt County, CA for the Avenue of the Giants Half Marathon. I first read about the race in a book my dad got me for Christmas called Fifty Places to Run Before You Die. Running through the redwood forest sounded novel and fun, so I put the race on my bucket list and totally forgot about it until earlier this year, when I was searching for a driving-distance race taking place in May; it met the criteria, so I signed up without putting much thought into it.
I was originally scheduled to run the full marathon, and as the race approached, I was a bit worried about my fitness. I was sick for most of April – first a bad head cold (flu?) and then strep throat – and hadn’t done any long runs since the Napa Marathon in early March. Thankfully (for me), road closures meant that the first half of the marathon course couldn’t be completed as planned, and thus the marathon would consist of two out-and-backs. Given the lack of novelty of the second half of the marathon, I decided to drop down to the half marathon distance and go for my 2023 goal of 1:37:00.
We drove up the Humboldt County on Saturday, stopping by the expo to pick up my bib on the way to our hotel. (Thank you, race organizers, for helping me even though I was late!)
We spent the rest of the day on Saturday enjoying the forests and beach. I’ll let the pictures do the talking:
I woke up early on Sunday morning, showered to warm up the muscles, ate some breakfast, and hopped in the car with about 15 minutes to spare. About seven minutes into the ride, I realized that I forgot my gels! I decided that it’d be better to start late than run without nutrition, so we turned around, went back to the hotel, and then hit the road again as quickly as possible – this time without any time to spare.
As time went on, and especially once we got off of the highway, it became apparent that all of the traffic was for the race and that I was going to be about 30 minutes late. Rather than wait in traffic – I was already pretty antsy – I decided to hop out of the car and run a mile to the starting line. If anything, it’d be an opportunity to test out actually warming up before a race.
It took roughly ten minutes to run the mile to the starting line. I barely stopped when I reached it (a few of us had to wait for some cars to pass, or something) and before I knew it, I was off! The first few miles of the course were a beautiful introduction to what the rest of the course had in store: lots and lots of tall trees.
Conditions on the course were absolutely perfect. It was cloudy but not raining, the air was cool, and the ground was smooth – forgiving, even. Starting late had some advantages: people were already pretty spread out, and I spent the entire race overtaking people, one after the next, which pumped me up like some sort of insatiable feral animal. My goal was 1:37:00, but at about the ten mile mark, I realized I was almost on pace for 1:30:00, and I decided to just go for it. “Pain is temporary.” “Perservere through the tough times.” “You used to think this was impossible.”
Despite my best efforts, I crossed the finish line in around 1:30:45. I slumped over, half elated that I smashed my original goal of 1:37:00, and half disappointed that I didn’t achieve my new goal of 1:30:00. It took me a good five minutes to catch my breath. My heart rate had been over 184 for an hour, and over 190 for ten minutes towards the end. I really pushed myself.
Christine found me on the ground, congratulated me on my fast time, and handed me some fluids. It took a few minutes for my watch to sync with my phone, but eventually everything uploaded to Strava and I saw my new half marathon PR: 1:29:58. Turns out, my route was a little bit long and technically I ran an extra 0.1 miles. Accounting for that, I made it under 1:30:00, and I couldn’t have been happier.
Running is funny. The numbers are totally arbitrary. There’s nothing special about 1:30:00. Tons of people are way faster than me. And yet, there’s something incredibly gratifying about setting hard personal goals and then surpassing them. It’s an amazing feeling, to realize that you’re capable of more than you originally thought. “I wonder what else I can do…”
On to the next one!