The Woodlands Half Recap
I thought I was tired here…. just wait a few days…
Well this recap took me a little longer to write than planned and that is a story for a whole other blog post… so here we go, the task at hand.
The first real race in a year! Woo! I was going into this race knowing it was to rip the band-aid off and just be racing again. The process of actually getting in a race since it had been so long. I wasn’t going for a PR, it was going to be more a mental exercise in getting back into it. I also had minimal mileage since my PF battle and then the procedure which ultimately kicked it.
The start of the race was magical. The National Anthem had me in almost tears that this was really happening. Man, I missed this. The immediate pre-race excitement/jitters. You just want the gun to go off and get moving.
I was just going to take the first 10k easy, 650 - 7min was my goal. I planned to stay around 7 minutes because I would much rather have more in the tank in the end than at the beginning. 657, 653, 7, 650, 659, 654… we were business. These all felt smooth and I was just enjoying taking in a race.
The course was great - fairly flat and a big loop. There were people cheering, so you never felt completely isolated even if you were running alone. Shout out to Nat that screamed encouragement for me in the middle… that gave some pep and made me smile.
Mile 7 came in at 651 and I thought now was the time to bring the remaining miles faster, lets get into the 640s. Mile 8 was 646, success - lets keep this rolling. I slowed a bit and mile 9 and 10 were both 654… I wanted to go, but the legs thought this pace was fine. Then in my mind I was thinking, ok, lets go the last 5k. Mile 651.. still feeling ok, just no more speed.
The one mile I wish I could do over is 12 - 705, still not terrible considering the training circumstances. Mile 13 just snuck back in under 7. If I felt tired, but I pushed that out of my mind and focused on moving the arms and just being happy to be there.
I was definitely pleased with 1:30:59 for the circumstances. Not every race is meant to be a PR, they all can’t be. But each race does serve a purpose. This got my mind back into a race and the feeling of being tired, but needing to push on. My next race isn’t until May 2nd and I will have a bigger goal here. Looking forward to racing again in RI, home turf.