digested ...

It's taken an entire week, but I have finally digested last Saturday's half marathon. Let's start with the good news. I PR'd. By a lot. 19 minutes and 47 seconds to be exact. And I had a lot of fun (well, mostly. except for those moments when I thought I was going to die). Now onto the bad news ...

I only PR'd by 19 minutes and 47 seconds. I had been expecting to run significantly faster (like 13 minutes faster). And I was even on pace to. Through nine miles my Garmin was reading 9:33 overall pace. At the end of the race, it read 10:33 overall pace. So basically I lost A LOT of time in those last few miles. What happened you ask? Well, simply put, a poorly placed water stop coupled with severe dehydration (we're talking borderline heat stroke) lead to me tweaking an old injury, cramping up and nearly passing out. It was rough. The race pictures don't really show how rough, but trust me, it was bad. (Not to mention my post-race condition, crazy nausea, no appetite, the chills, pounding headache ...)

At first I felt like a failure, I had kept such a strong pace for the first nine miles and I quickly saw my goal time slipping away. All I could think was, "I run this distance ALL THE TIME. Why can't I put it together now?" But a day or two later, I realized I had a huge PR. Sure it wasn't as good as I would have liked, but that will just make it easier to PR next time. And I left everything out on the course. It wasn't pretty, but I know I couldn't have finished that race a second faster on that day. And I can be proud of that. Plus, this disastrous race has really help me mentally and strategically prepare for the marathon. It's cemented in my mind that no matter what, I need to stay with that pace group. It will keep me from going out too fast and dying in the last few miles. And seeing that this will be my last marathon (more on my future race plans another day), I want to enjoy it and if that means running slightly slower than "my potential", I am OK with that. FOR REAL. Plus, that "slightly slower" running (4:20-4:30) will still give me about a 40 minute PR. Which totally works for me.