I finally completed my first half marathon race! The weather could not have been better especially given the colder rainier day's we been experiencing. I was a little nervous given that it was my first race and I went all by myself.
It was difficult but I had cut out alcohol and meat out of my diet the week prior because I didn't want to risk feeling lethargic for the race!
I packed and prepared everything I needed the night before so that I didn't have to scramble the morning of. I also 'carbo loaded' my Saturday night's dinner at moms place! I made a udon dish with home made peanut sauce and tofu stir fry and lots of cooked spinach on the side for iron and power! I was definitely full for the remainder of the evening!
I woke up at 5 am and spent a good 20 minutes stretching. The new foam roller I bought from the BMO Marathon expo has also been amazing! Especially on the back, really feels great.
Anyway now on to the race, I got there at about 6:15 am and quickly snacked on a protein bar. These Solo-gi bars I picked up at the expo are really tasty! I really like how my body reacts to the bar afterwards because I don't experience that sugar spike as I normally do with other bars.
Race started at 7 am and the first 5 km was tough! I think my body didnt like me racing 5k without warming up! I also started to feel my ears burn a bit, the feeling I got when I used to run the 6 lap runs in high school. Back then, 6 laps to me felt like my thoughts of a full marathon!
After around the 6k mark we headed down hill for a bit and it was then when my body started to warm up. I still didnt quite feel euphoric, I think my body and mind wasn't quite getting used to the speed and the crowd, I felt like everyone was passing me almost the entire race, it was not a very encouraging feeling! My breath was also feeling a little short as well for some reason, so it complicated my run a little bit more.
It wasn't until probably after halfway mark when I finally decided to pop open my chocolate gels when I started to feel my runners high kick in. My armin set then started to play a good tune and I was about halfway into Stanley Park with the sun shining and my run started to stride. I felt awesome. Soon enough I had 4k to go, we were passing English Bay. My legs started to feel like rubber and I had lots of energy!
At 19k I attempted to kick in some speed, slowly, til I hit the 20k mark, looked at my watch for the first time and it showed 1:45, I was surprised! I didn't think I was going to finish the race in under 2 hours! So that encouraged me to pick up more speed and try to get it to 1:50. I could spot the blue finish line and I was feeling quite exhausted but pushed myself as hard as I could, I missed the 1:50 by 1 minute, but 1:51:41, placed 86 of 761 in my division, and 1063 of I'm quite happy!
I think this will be the start of many more half marathons to go!
