Race-recap: Victoria GoodLife Fitness Half Marathon

So today I ran the Victoria half-marathon and it was my best race to date. Amazing. Its 12hrs later and I'm still riding the high. I went in to the race up a couple lbs from my lowest (about 139). But I had trained well especially on distance and felt pretty good. My only concern was I kinda fell off the wagon on speed training the last couple weeks.

I usually eat about 1700cals during the week but on Thursday I upped that to 2200 and added more carbs. Saturday night we went out for dinner and I had an appy, spaghetti and dessert :) The race was at 7:30 Sunday morning so I got up at 5:25 and ate a bagel with PB + banana. Tried to drink a liter of water but couldnt get that much in me (as well as a coffee) before my cut-off of 6am. Saturday was practically a monsoon with the wind of rain but we woke up to a sunny morning with no wind which was great! I had to pee a million times before the start of the race but at least then I knew I wouldnt have to go once we got started.

The race started and I noticed the 1hr and 40 mins pacer was right in front of me. I was hoping to beat my previous personal best of 1:44 but I thought 1:40 might be too fast and I didnt want to burn out so I didnt pay too much attention to him. I just told myself to stay at a comfortable pace. But every time I looked up he was still right in front of me. When I came up to 10k I got pretty excited because I felt comfortable. I was keeping up to him and it wasnt wearing me out and I got inspired that I could stay with him the entire race.

I have never run with a pacer before and he was awesome! He kept us relaxed on the hills and speedy on the downhill. He was exactly on pace at every mile. He told us to huddle together so it was less effort as we were drafting from the runners in front of us. He shouted encouragements and told us we could do it! I stayed right behind him the entire race. I felt strong, it wasnt hard to stay with him. There was no point in the race I thought I couldnt do this, in fact I knew based on how I was feeling that I was going to kill my previous best!

The last km he shouted at us to stay ahead of him, that we were going to finish sub-1:40, that we had it! It was exactly what I needed. The last 100m I gave it all I had and sprinted across the finish line to finish at 1hr and 39 mins and 44 seconds :) taking 5 mins off of my previous best. To tell you the truth I probably a had a bit more in me, I didnt "leave it on the course", not much but there was a little bit left in the tank :)

I came in 87th out of almost 2000 women, the top 5%. I havent stopped smiling all day. What a rush!

Race re-cap: Nautical Days 4 miler

So I ran the Nautical 4 mile race and while it was a new PR for me for speed-wise it wasnt a great race overall. I decided to train the 3 weeks before for 7 min miles as my previous best for doing 4 miles was 7:13min/mile (not in a race but on a route by my work).

My uncle and I :) He races a lot with me which is fun! I got there race morning and it was hot. We took off and the first mile is mostly up hill. I was under pace for the first mile at 6:40, but I was dying. It was too fast. I knew it wasnt sustainable and I was having no fun at all.

The second mile had both uphill and downhill, but overall more up and I averaged 7:20. I could tell I was fading and the heat was tough. The third mile was all gradual uphill again and I totally fell apart. averaging 7:56 mins/mile. The whole time my phone is yelling at me that I'm not making my pace. I was trying to place 3rd for my age group as I knew I had a chance at that one. I was counting the women who had passed me and I was in 4th place overall, but I could tell one of the women was young so I figured I was holding on to 3rd for women 30-39.

The final mile was down hill and I was able to hit 6:43 again. But in the last 400m straight away to the finish line another woman passed me and I could tell she was in her 30's and I wasnt going to place. To add insult to injury she flung sweat on me as she zoomed by...lol. I just had nothing left in me to stay ahead of her. So I got beat by a 19 year old, 31 year old and two 34 year olds :) No medal this time as I was 4th for my age group.

So my husband gives me **** because I came 5th overall out of all the women (small race so maybe only a hundred) and had a new PR on my pace of average 7mins and 6 second/mile so I should be pleased. But I just didnt feel good during the run or after. The only highlight for me was a couple other racers asked me if I beat Becky (who apparently was the woman who came in a about 10 seconds after me) and I said yes and they said congratulations she is our local hotshot. So that was nice to hear.

Lessons learned:

Dont set the bar too high and make it so you no longer enjoy the race. I wont set my pace so fast next time that the whole race I'm panicking and getting yelled at and not having fun. I run because I love it, placing and getting medals is fun but not at the expense of killing the joy of running.

Dont start so fast you burn out too quickly, save some energy for the end so sweat flingers dont leave you in their dust :)