I signed up to run the Comox RV Half Marathon in order to get a more “official” personal best in that distance.
I said “official” because I have not raced a half marathon after recovering from my injury and before my injury, I had a personal best of 1:38:xx.
In my full marathons, which I got into after my injury, I would sometimes split around 1:38-1:39, so I knew that I could beat it.
My goal was 1:35, but what actually happened will surprise you because I didn’t expect it would turn out quite like this…
The race day started out the usual way, except that I had to get up quite a bit earlier than I normally would have. It’s roughly a 2.5 hour drive from Victoria to Courtenay (where the race took place).
My concern was that I might get stiff and tired from sitting in the car for so long…
At the start line, I hung out with my good friends. Like I said before, they make racing experience so much more AWESOME. 🙂
Above: My friend Pete and I at the start line. I’m sporting my awesome Public Myth gear, as usual.
Honestly, I didn’t get to train as much as I would have liked, but on days that I DID train-I trained well.
Even though the half marathon is more of an endurance race, I focused more on speed training because that’s what I felt I needed to work on.
My friends, who have done this race before, warned me about some of the hills that I was going to encounter on my way to the finish line. That’s ok, I like hills 🙂
Right from the start, I settled into a 4:20-4:25 per km pace. By the time I reached the 10km mark, I was still under 44 minutes, 43:40 to be exact. That was basically my 10k race time a while ago.
Then, I thought to myself: “Well, I’m almost at the halfway point, so why slow down now.” In fact, unlike some other races I’ve done, I didn’t get the urge to slow down at all.
Above: My friends and I after finishing the race.
After I got past the 15km mark, I even ended up doing a few 4:10 kms. I was still feeling great, which surprised me a little bit because I started out faster than I normally would for this distance.
It was more like: “Yay! I can keep my previous 10k pace for the whole half marathon!” rather than: “Oh no! I started out too fast and now I have to slow down if I wanna finish.”
With less than 1km left to go and still feeling great, I knew that I would get a great time. I passed a couple of people in the last km and was thrilled to see that I was coming up to the last 100m.
The best part? I still had enough energy to have a strong sprint finish.
In some races, I would feel tired towards the end-but not this time, even though it was one of the longest races I’ve done this year.
Above: My 2nd place age category medal.
I ended up finishing 2nd in my age category with a time of 1:31:34 (average pace was 4:21 per km or 6:59 per mile). This race exceeded all of my expectations of myself in every way.
It makes me wonder: could I break 1:30 in a half marathon this year on an easier, flatter course? I guess there is only one way to find out…