I’m the One at the Sail

Exciting time, this 2018 of running. After a PR in both of the 5Ks to start the year, I did a PR in my half marathon just this past Sunday!

I went into the Run the Border race hoping that I would be able to pull off a personal best. My goal has been to run a 1:45 which was a New Year’s resolution and about an eight minute mile pace. Over the last year or year and a half that has seem feasible if I just sort of sucked up and ran a half with that expectation.

To me, the issue with running a 1:45 half is that it would probably be uncomfortable and I thought there would be the good possibility of totally failing halfway in and slowing myself beyond what I’ve run in the past.  I knew that some part of me needed to be okay with the idea of falling apart in a race but that’s a hard thing to embrace. So with this race I thought why not give it ago although even mentally italic myself to maybe just an 8:15 pace using excuses like being sick and training in my head (blah blah blah).

 Lining up for the race it turned out to be a pretty good tailwind and because it was just down the border that tail one would be with us a majority of the time. It was colder than I expected but certainly not something beyond what I’ve rin and even this winter. So I least up got myself prepared and went out.

And lo and behold:

1:45:02!!

The tailwind definitely helped  propel my race to this time; however I will say that even though it was uncomfortable and I definitely had moments of wanting to stop it was not something that was insurmountable. It was something that I even upon finishing thought “I could maybe go faster”.That’s a pretty cool place to leave a new personal record especially going into my second attempt at a BQ.

In the end I got third in my age group and beat my best half marathon pace by four minutes or thereabouts. It was a pretty cool race and I like how I felt (not necessarily during it but after) and the thought that I could do better. It will/would take more work and focus but not something that seems entirely insane