Half Marathon PB!

Early this morning I headed to Williamstown for a the Sri Chinmoy Half Marathon race. It was spookily eery with a very low fog and reduced visibility, but I liked it especially hearing the horn of the tug boat and then seeing it slowly come into view.

At the start line I caught up with a couple of running friends and worked out that we shared a racing strategy - running at 5minutes per kilometre - for as long as I could. We started of a little slowly whilst we dodged runners around us but by about 3km we settled into a nice running pace. We then slowly started ticking off the kilometers we were a bit fast for the first few kilometers and then we ended up running just over 5 minutes per kilometer. I was quite happy with that it would still bring me under 1h48min - my previous half marathon PB. We finally completed the first lap, went past the finish line to start our next loop. This section was a little tight and a couple of little hills to make us work for it. At this point a friend walking her dog shouted out encouragement and I was pleased to be able to tell her that I was still feeling good. It was also around this point that I started coming close to some runners ahead of me. As anyone who knows me realises I am a little bit competitive and so I was spurred on to up the pace a little an overtake these people. Unfortunately this meant I dropped my two running buddies (umm sorry about that) and kept on going. I was now at 16km which only meant 5km left to run - the same distance as my regular Gunn Run! I tried to keep the pace and still managed to overtake some runners in the last few kilometers. I got to the last kilometer and gave it all I had crossing the line in 1hour45min30sec which works out to be exactly 5 minutes per kilometer - I couldn't have paced it any better if I had tried.

Although I am sitting here now feeling tired and stiff I am elated to have improved my half marathon time. My first Half Marathon was in 2001, 8 years ago and I finished in 1hr58min30 sec, that means today I was full 13 minutes faster - that makes me a very happy girl :).