Okay, to be honest, I’m under-trained. Still, I was hoping to still do a personal best under 1:40. It has been 2 years since I have raced a half-marathon. My fitness is definitely better than what it was two years ago. The result, I finished in 1:48 which’s super disappointing. I know my race is over when cramps started to act up at 15km. From then on, all hopes are gone.
I started the race, about the third or fourth row from the start line, so as to avoid congestion with the slower crowd. I reminded myself to hold back pace and just try to hit consistent pace of about 7:30 mile which I did very well all the way till 15km. I thought everything is going well, then approaching the 15km mark, my left calf showed signs of the cramp. I prayed for it to go well, but it only got worse. My right calf started to act up also, along with my abductors. I felt so disappointed with myself. I was trying to salvage all I can, maybe hitting below 1:45 which’s my personal best. It’s really agonizing to see the 1:45 pacers caught up with me and slowly went ahead of me. All I can do is just seeing them go by, as my legs refused to listen to me. I feel I still have a lot in my tank, but my legs failed me. I reached 15km in 1:10 and yet finished in 1:48. The last half an hour or so, sigh.
Probably the reason behind the cramps are that my legs are not well conditioned to last the 21km. I haven’t been doing long runs, and that probably killed me. Also, I may hit the downslope too fast. On the good side, I’m impressed with myself that I can maintain a 7:30 mile pace for almost 10 miles and still feel quite comfortable. This is quite contrary to what I felt during training. I also handled the hills well. I’m very sure with more long runs, and more strengthening of legs through hill work, I will be on the way to smash my personal best. I’m very confident of doing about 1:38 or 1:39 with some more effort at training. This race also motivated me to train harder again.
This race will round up 2010, and for now, I will head back to base training phrase, with very high mileage. I will be back next year again for my personal best.
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
