SMC Half Marathon: A Long Time Between Drinks

Most runners have a period of time when they take the sport where the
PBs come thick and fast and improvement is constant. My honeymoon period
lasted from July 2003, when I took running up until July 2005. That was
when I ran 1:55:30 at the Gold Coast Half. Since then I had not run a PB
at any of my regular racing distances.

Until last weekend.

As I stated in my last post, my training has been great over the last
month and I've dropped a few kilos, so I knew I was in the PB ballpark,
and I also felt that I needed to break the old PB on the weekend if
there was to be any chance of running 1:50 at the Central Coast in six
weeks.

So I trained normally during the week, running a speed session (10 x
400s) on Thursday and a short hilly run on Friday and took a rest day on
Saturday, and lined up feeling pretty fresh on Sunday morning in good
conditions (10 degrees, 70% humidity, slight breeze) with most of the
usual suspects.

I decided to run my own race, and set the virtual partner feature on the
Garmin to a 1:55 half marathon.

I paid a lot of attention to the Garmin in the first couple of
kilometers so that I could settle into a rhythm at the right speed.

The first 10K passed without incident - I stuck with the virtual partner
and felt great.

This was my first attempt at the SMC half. It is basically two laps of
the 10K course (I've done that a few times) with a small loop in the
middle. I wasn't expecting that the loop in the middle would contain the
nastiest hill on the entire course. This upset my rhythm a bit and put
me behind the virtual partner by about 100m. I tried to lift the pace a
little, but this felt a bit dangerous, so I decided to try to stick to
the same pace and kick in the last K and try to pick up the 100m there.

So although I was tiring, I felt OK going into the last K. This was
where Bernie G passed me going a fair bit quicker than I. This was the
perfect opportunity to stick with her, which I did for the next 200m,
but I couldn't keep it up, and for the rest of the race I just tried to
stay as close as I could to her. Bernie went through right on my target
of 1:55, and I finished in 1:55:10 - a 20 second PB.

I'm stoked. My eyes are still firmly focused on the main game - 1:50 at
the Central Coast, but the relief of actually setting a PB after such a
long time is great. I'm also pretty confident now that if I can shift
another 3Kg and lift my speed a bit 1:50 is a realistic target, and I
wasn't so confident last week.

Oh, and thanks to all of you for your kind words regarding our family
news. Much appreciated.