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There is an overused saying that is often uttered to apply to many non-running events that take a while to complete. "It's marathon not a sprint" is used to describe many things that have no tie to racing.
The most important thing to remember about the News and Sentinel Half Marathon is -- It's a marathon, not a sprint -- well, it's half of one any way.
You need to pace yourself.
Go out like a jack rabbit and you will fade quickly.
A few years back I was looking at photos of the first quarter mile of a few different half marathons. I noticed one young guy holding his own with some of the world's fastest runners in multiple races. It seemed odd because his bib-number was high, meaning he signed up late in the game, and he looked more like a linebacker than a distance runner, yet there he was with an impressive kick 1,000 feet into the race.
I decided to see how he finished the race. He finished well behind almost everyone, coming in behind around 650 people.
You learn during training what you are capable of. Your pace per mile will get faster, to a point, the more you train. When you run a race, the adrenaline will increase it a little bit but it is important to not get too caught up in trying to have a killer first mile only to have a horrible mile 2-13.
The excitement of the start of the race will make some people push beyond what they are capable of and they will end up walking way more of the race than they had planned on. Don't be one of those people, you will not have a good time.
There is no shame in walking when you are registered as a runner in a race. Most consider it part of their strategy on the hills. If you run until you cannot run another step, it is unlikely that you will have the energy to start running again.
Some years I have sat in a golf car on the top of the 13th Street Hill with a cooler full of sports drinks. I tend to get to the point after the fastest runners have passed. I have found those runners rarely take a bottle of anything anyway. At a certain point during the race, the long line of runners quit running up the steep hill.
This group has hit their wall, they are tired, they are hot and they are walking up the steepest hill on the course. At this point nearly all of them will take a cold bottle of sports drink, even the ones that are still carrying a cup of water from the water stop that they just passed.
Whatever your pace is, you will like end up alongside other racers who have nearly identical paces. You will find yourself walking when they walk, running when they run.
I got some advice once from a life-long racer. You are actually racing the person in front of you, not the whole field, focus on passing them, not getting to the front of the field. They are racing at around your pace and they are a competitor you are capable of catching.
My wife Lori and daughter Emily walked the last half marathon in 2019.
They spent 13.1 miles trying to catch a guy they simply called "yellow shirt guy." I knew what he looked like because he was in all the photos I had of them finishing, still slightly behind him.
He came in to pick up his trophy a few weeks later and I shot a photo of the two of us, sending it to my family with a note that I caught "yellow-shirt guy" for them.
He was their target the whole race, the one that pushed them to go just a little faster while at the same time, staying within the pace they were capable of. My family, and "yellow-shirt guy" were all doing their race at their pace. They all knew that it was indeed a (half) marathon, not a sprint.
Art Smith is co-director the News and Sentinel races and is online manager for The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. He can be reached at asmith@newsandsentinel.com. His column about the races appears each weekend.