The L.A. Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon fit nicely into my training schedule, sandwiched between two 20 mile runs this month, so I signed up for it and hoped to get some good pacing practice out of it. I figured I wouldn’t try too hard, but of course, it’s a race, and I ended up making a face fit for one of my all-time worst finish-line photos – and I’ve had some bad ones.

I started out trying to keep up with the 1:45 pace group, as my personal best was a 1:45:45 back in 2007. I let them go fairly early on, though, as I figured three months of running at a 9 minute mile wasn’t probably good training for suddenly running thirteen 8 minute miles in a row. But I managed to keep a good pace, power up the hills, and pass a lot of people as the race went on. My GPS watch stopped as we went through a tunnel, once on the way out and once on the way back, so I couldn’t really tell how I was doing, but I felt good and definitely had some strength left in me as we got past the ten mile mark.

It was a fast course, with some nice downtown and USC sights, and many in the crowd of 7500 or so were decked out in Halloween costumes, which made for entertaining watching. As I headed down the home stretch, I saw that I was somewhere around 1:46, and made a charge to get in at 1:46:07 – less than thirty seconds slower than my previous best. If I’d known I was that close, well, I probably would have come closer and still not beaten it. Anyway, I had a great time, and Grace seemed to have fun at her first race. When it was all said and done, it was 9:30 in the morning and I’d already done what I needed to do for the day.

This weekend, I’ve got my last 20 mile run, and then it’s downhill until the Seattle Marathon in less than a month.