Half Marathon PR and Disapointment

Today I ran the New Bedford Half Marathon. As I said in my last blog, the forecast was for rain, snow, and wind. Luckily (I guess) there was no rain or snow, but lots of wind....I would have preferred rain or snow!! I got to New Bedford, registered, and did some stretching....so far I was feeling good. I ran into Steph and Dawna who were also running and it was great to see friendly faces.

I ran a 1.5 mile warm up with a couple strides to wake up my legs and got in the starting shoot. I was hoping to pace at an 8:00 min/mile for a 1:45 half marathon. I started out feeling good and settled into a comfortable pace. Just after the 3 mile mark, the first of the major hills of the course starts....about a 0.5 mile climb. The next couple miles were through neighborhoods and mostly flat, which was much appreciated after the hill. Then we headed out towards the water....miles 4-8 still were going well and my pace was on track, but I could feel my legs getting heavier. Then the wind hit....that's when things started getting rough. By mile 10 the wind was really getting to me and I started slowing down some. I was doing the calculations in my head to see if I still had a shot at coming in under 1:45 and around mile 11.5 I realized I wasn't going to hit that goal. My legs started feeling like bricks and I mentally broke.....even though I knew I would still get a PR for some reason I mentally just gave up. At the start of mile 12, the second major climb began and I was done. I actually stopped and walked for about 5 seconds......thinking to myself "what the frick are you doing.....run!!"

I finished in 1:46:38 (watch time....they didn't have chip time so I am going with this instead) and 1:46:51 (gun time). That's a 4 minute PR.....I ran 1:49:35 at the same race last year!! While I am really excited about the PR especially since I ran it coming off a 47 mile week, I can't help but be disappointed...not because I didn't hit my goal (I'm confident that I could run sub-1:45 with a proper taper), but because I mentally gave up. That's not me.....I don't do that.

Oh well, what's done is done.....at least I have the PR to show for it! Here's my mile splits from my Garmin if you are interested. You can see exactly where the wind kicked in and where I mentally stopped.

7:56
7:57
8:01
8:17 (first major hill)
7:58
7:56
7:51
8:05
8:03
8:16 (the headwind was brutal and relentless from here on out)
8:19
8:20
8:35 (the last of the hills and the end of my mental strength)
6:45 (for the 0.1....at least I had some kick left in me!)

Total time = 1:46:38 (avg pace 8:07)
Total weekly miles =47