1. Competition background
On May 21, 2023, I participated in the 2023 Tongchuan Yijun Half Marathon, which was also the first half marathon in my life. . The weather forecast a long time ago called for rain, and sometimes heavy rain was forecast, so I was worried whether the half marathon would be postponed, but fortunately it was held as scheduled.
The 2023 Yijun "Fragrant Medicine Valley·Healthy Mountain City" Ecological Half Marathon started happily in the beautiful Pengzu Medicine Valley. This event is hosted by the Yijun County People's Government and hosted by the Yijun County Education, Science, Technology and Sports Bureau. It aims to further create Yijun's ecological business card and form a new pattern of global tourism through the integration of "cultural tourism + health care + sports".
2. Pre-match goals
The goal is to finish the race safely. It was still raining lightly that day. There is a mountainous road with a steep slope in the first half of the track. In the early stage, you need to slow down to 600 pace to maintain your heart rate and physical strength. In the second half of the race, maintain a speed of 520 on a flat road. Don’t collapse. Experience the first place in the race. .
Prepare 3 energy gels (start, 8K, 15K) and 3 salt pills (start, 8K, 15K)
3. Competition process
At 6:30 in the morning on May 21st, I took the official shuttle bus from Xi'an to Yijun. I got up very early to catch the bus and spent most of the time catching up on my sleep in the car. I arrived at Yijun at 8:30 at the competition venue. The gongs and drums have started to be beaten, and it has become lively. Our group of contestants arrived a little late.
When I arrived at the bag storage area, I hurriedly changed my clothes and shoes, put energy gels and salt pills into my waist bag, found a toilet to empty my body, and found an open space to start stretching and warming up.
The run started on time at 9 o'clock. The warm-up was not sufficient. I had to run at a slow and steady pace for the first two kilometers to get used to it.
2 to 5 kilometers is a switchback to the mountain road. I have to say that going uphill is really tiring. I ran at a small pace of 170 steps and kept a pace of 600 slowly uphill. The downhill cadence is 190, and the fastest pace is 430. I can control the time every time I go back and forth, and I can maintain my physical strength.
I ate supplies at 8K and 15K as planned. It was raining lightly, but I didn’t actually sweat much, so I took salt pills to avoid cramps.
Caught up with the 215 rabbit.
During this period, I also caught up with the rabbit for 2 hours and followed it for a long distance.
The second half of the race was on track, and the rain was a bit heavy. After reaching 19KM, I felt a little tired. I don’t know whether it was the cold weather, lack of physical strength, or both.
In the last kilometer, I kept a steady pace of 510, and in the last 500 meters, I kept a steady pace of 500 and sprinted at a steady speed. Finally, I finished the race safely and broke 2 in advance, which is a gratifying thing.
Being able to finish the race safely is strongly related to the distribution of physical strength, replenishment of supplies, and continuous running in the near future. I started to resume running in March and ran 70KM+ every month. I was able to slowly recover and improve my aerobic capacity.
4. Thoughts after running
1. Supplies are essential for long-distance running. Next time, bring an extra energy gel to prevent you from being unable to keep up with your physical strength at the end of the journey. Especially on rainy days, the caloric consumption is relatively large and a lot of energy needs to be replenished. On sunny days, you sweat a lot, so you need to prepare a few more salt pills.
2. I will not run a full marathon in the past two years. Half marathon is 21.0975km. Full marathon. Although the distance of the full marathon is twice that of the half marathon, this is not a simple relationship between half marathon time x 2. The difficulty of the full marathon should be that of the half marathon. 4 or 5 times, but we still have to maintain a certain degree of awe towards the whole horse race. There are certain performance requirements. You can finish the half marathon with just one top, but the full marathon is quite difficult.
3. Daily running should accumulate mileage through continuous training, interspersed with interval running, aerobic running, etc.
Breaking 2 in the half marathon has inspired me to continue running. I will participate in the Binzhou Half Marathon on June 3, 2023. The weather has also been raining recently. I hope it will rain less in the future. With the experience of fighting in rainy days this time, I'll be more relaxed next time.
