Quite Pleased

I ended up running / racing in the First Half half marathon today as planned on my race schedule. At 4:00 AM this morning I was still tentative due to a really nasty cold I was fighting all week. But I woke up at 6:00 AM and while not totally rested, I felt good enough to give it a go.

Of course I made sure to slightly overdress and pack plenty of warm-down gear for after. And got a little lucky with the weather as the rain held off until just after the race. And even then it was not hard rain. It seems that our coach Lara was doing all sorts of sun dances the last few days and I guess it worked. Thanks Lara!!

I decided to treat this whole thing as a strong long run with some tempo finish and would just run it "within myself". That is, just run it how I feel and more than anything enjoy the run and the fact that I *can* run it. My buddies Gen and Lawrence are both sick/injured and couldn't toe the starting line.

So that is what I did. Very easy in the beginning - a little too easy perhaps as I was lined up far back and for the first two miles was stuck solid in a pack that wasn't exactly breaking land-speed records. Then it thinned out a bit and I got to open it up somewhat but nothing too wild. I kept a pretty good pace all throughout and had to fight it a bit in the last 3 miles as one would expect in any case.

When I was done I felt spent but really well. And I don't think that I have done any additional harm to my cold.

I finished in 1:45:45 chip time and am very pleased with it. All things considered I must say that it was probably one of my better half marathons. Not time-wise, there it ranked 7th out of 15 -- nicely in the middle. But for a "C" priority race that was preceded by a 2:15 trainer ride yesterday and the fact that I pulled this off after a week that was... spotty at best. Overall how I felt throughout was really the key for me to rank it high.

I bumped into a lot of other Right Shoe runners. Some of whom I haven't seen in a while (Iain is back!) and most did quite well or at least seemed content with their results.

So, off to Costco I am now. Maybe I am going to treat myself with one of those mystery meat hot dogs..? Well, at least they are kosher.

Thanks for stopping by.
Cheers!