Originally Posted by
Grog
The weather was GORGEOUS yesterday - sunny skies, 2 Celcius at the start, just a bit of wind - but I had an okay half-marathon. Exactly on time, but not on 'energy budget'. To meet my time goal (1 hour 55 minutes) I had to run 5m27s per kilometer. However it's a very hilly course. I did 5 minute kilometers for a while until I started hitting the big hills, thinking I'd "save" a few seconds for later use. Well maybe that wasn't such a good strategy: I have been training for distance, not for speed, and I did not often run that fast recently. Moreover, the race was not that well organized and there wasn't enough water on the course, and I didn't bring my own, so I was pretty much unable to eat, having only two Clif bloks (maybe 60 calories???) over the whole distance.
At around 17 km I realized that I had more big hills and no slack if I wanted to meet my time goal. I "pressed the pace" (which by that time was quite relative) but it really wasn't fun. I love to finish a race feeling like I could still go five more kilometers, but really that was not the case yesterday.
Thankfully water and food were plentiful after the race, but by then it was a bit too late. They even had diluted tomato soup, which felt great.
Lesson: I will need to do a little bit of speed work as I prepare for my marathon. Not a lot, I need to focus on distance. But a little.
**
On a separate note: The race started and finished in some historic fort built at the beginning of the British Columbia colony (Fort Langley). In one of the historic building there was an exhibit containing the governor's diary from year 1828, opened at the week of February 18th or so. On the same date, 182 years ago, the weather was the same - crisp, beautiful views of the mountains, sunny - but much colder: the river in front of the fort was frozen over, although not so hard since some guy was recorded to have drowned when the ice broke under his weight. That river hasn't been frozen in a while...
I am a leaf on the wind
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