"Crashing" the Chilly Half Marathon...

Today I was scheduled to do a 2 hour long run.

It turned out that the "Chilly Half Marathon" was being held in downtown Burlington this morning and I decided to use this race as part of my long run.

I tried to register and it was "sold out", the City officials only allowed them to accept 2000 runners.

So I did something I've never done before... I decided to "crash it"!

I showed up just after the gun went off and by the time I got to the start line, I was the officially the "last" runner to start the race.

My training plan was to keep the heart rate at 139 bpm or less. For the most part, I was able to do that for most of the race.

At the end, it got up to 141 - 144 bpm and I tried to slow down to keep it below 139, but it is hard when you are in a race with people all around you. The competitive "juices" are extremely hard to turn off, even on a training run.

From the start to the finish, I probably passed over a 1000 people. In the beginning it was tough because most of the people at the back were "very" slow and some were even walking.

Although, I shouldn't complain as it was not like I paid for the race.

It was the first race that I ran with an iPod and a camera. It was fun listening to music and taking pictures from the runners perspective.

I found it very enjoyable to do a long run with a lot of people, as opposed to doing it on my own. The time goes by so much quicker.

The only issue I had was around the 8 km point, I had a slight soreness, for a brief period, in the front of my quads, similar to yesterday. I think it is because of not refueling with food sufficiently.

The last 1/2 of the run was along Lakeshore Blvd, which is very beautiful with the old trees and beautiful homes.

I ended up running the 1/2 marathon in 1:54, an 8:41 pace, then continued to run for another 6 minutes to get in my full 2 hours.

After the run, on the drive home, I felt great. I love the energy of all the Runners and volunteers.

I'm glad I "crashed" the race!