My solo half marathon time trial run this morning, was a huge success. At the start of the year, I had set myself a goal. I had not shared that goal with anyone, except my coach. My goal was to run a half marathon, in less than 100 minutes.
I had originally planned to attempt to hit that goal, during a local race called ‘Just A Short Run’. Unfortunately, with the ongoing pandemic, the race got moved from late March to October. So instead, I decided to try it solo, as a kind of ‘virtual’ race with myself.
Hence, at around 10:30am this morning, I was at the local park. I started my day with a 10 minute run, to get my legs warmed up. I went easy for a few minutes and towards the end, ran a few hundred yards at my target pace.
Feeling good and nicely warmed up, I went back to my car, to go over the details of our ‘water stop’ with my wife. With that all squared away, I walked back to my imaginary ‘start line’. I jogged up to the line, pushed start on my watch, and off I went.
I had made the decision, that I was going run 13.2 miles. This was because, in real half marathon races, it is very rare for me to run less than this total distance. Unless I run absolutely perfect tangents on the course, I will always run slightly over the 13.1 mile, half marathon distance. My course for today was a 3.2 mile out and back, followed by two 5 mile loops around the park’s lake.
As I settled into my run, I had a feeling that I was running really fast, maybe too fast. I eased back to a pace that I was pretty confident I could hold for a long time. My watch buzzed after the first mile. The pace was 7:32 minutes per mile; right on my target. The second mile was mostly uphill. I kept my effort the same, but knew that I would likely be slightly slower. I was; that mile took me 7:43 minutes. My third mile was again on pace at 7:34 minutes.
I was now in a groove, and running at close to the pace, that I needed to hit my goal. For the first loop around the lake, I felt good and didn’t look at my watch. I was feeling quite strong and was pretty confident, that my pace was still on target. The only thing that concerned me, was that I was struggling with my nutrition. At the pace I was running, it was hard to eat the chews that I had planned to eat.
The start of the second loop had an uphill section, and for the first time, I felt my legs starting to ‘complain’. I pushed on, but felt that I was slowing down quite a bit. Just before the top of the hill, my watch buzzed. I couldn’t resist looking. The time for the last mile was 7:48. I was quite encouraged by this, because I was convinced it was going to be a lot slower. Once over the hill, I made the decision that it was time to ‘go’. I picked up my pace slightly and said to myself, push this pace to the end.
The fact that I am so familiar with this loop around the lake, really helped. I knew the sections where the terrain would slow me down, and so was able to prepare mentally to dig deep. In order to hit my goal, I needed to keep up the higher pace. I counted off the miles to the end. Four miles to go, three miles, two miles and then at last, I was in the final mile.
The last mile is slightly downhill at the start, so this really helped me to dig deep and push even harder. I kept my cadence high and really focused on staying relaxed. My legs were feeling really tired as I made the last turn towards the finish. I could see my wife waiting for me. This encouraged me to make one final push and I was done. I pressed stop on my watch. Had I achieved my goal? I looked down and saw 1:38:52.
This solo half marathon was immensely satisfying. I think I paced it really well and achieved a negative split. The second half of the run, was two minutes quicker than the first. I did find it much harder to do the run solo, compared to running an actual race. That said, it was a great experience. I had not only achieved a PR by three and half minutes, but I had also run it in under 100 minutes. Mission accomplished.
