Hey,
Today’s agony was to accomplish a half marathon after a break of several years. After having been a ill for a long time during this winter my expectations were not especially high. I just wanted to get a solid run done and have a better self confidence for the upcoming months and my marathon training.
I got a lift from an old colleague of mine which was really pleasant thing, as I could save at least an hour in trips to Oldenburg and back from there. We got to the shopping centre early and had time to sip some water and snacks before getting to the starting grid.
The start shot was fired at 11 AM. I wanted to start in a moderate pace, but not too slowly either in order to be able to run at a steady pace. My minimum target was to run the half marathon below 1.40 and in a more optimal case even below 1.35. In other words I wanted to keep a pace of ~4.25 – 4.40 min/km. There were over hundred runners participating at the half marathon whereas the most runners wanted to test their condition at 10k race.
The route consisted of one start lap plus 4 times 5 km laps. The route itself was nothing special, partly rural, partly urban environment mostly on an asphalt road. My plan seemed to work pretty well – my times varied from 4.20 to 4.45 min/km. Some parts of the race felt pretty hard, but in general the race was OK – actually very OK – if one considers how much I have been able to train lately. I also drank a couple of mugs water during the race. This was probably a bit unnecessary, but when you’re used to drinking water during the race I wanted to support my confidence and not mess up with it by changing the habits.
When I finally reached the finish line I could see that I had missed the target of 1.35 by about 10 seconds, but all in all I was pretty satisfied. In the next half marathon race I’ll have to aim at being quicker than the target time of 1.30. 🙂 Now I’ll hit the bed satisfied and in order to get some sleep for the hard new week at the office.