I haven’t been doing much running lately. My monthly average miles run from Nov 1 to today was about 11. That’s right – 11 miles per month.

Today I ran a 1/2 Marathon. I had thought about pussing out and running the 5K but the turn off for the 5K must have been right at the beginning and I was on the wrong side of the start so that didn’t happen and I’m really glad it didn’t. I was thinking I would really rock the 5K and PR but when that ship sailed I started focusing on the 1/2 mary.

I totally rocked it, people! According to my Garmin (and my official time will undoubtedly be a couple minutes slower because I was way back from the start) was 2:20. That’s a 22 minute PR over my last official 1/2 (which I ran untrained and sick and which was super hilly) and 8 minutes faster than my 1/2 time at the SF Marathon.
Here are my splits:

Update:
My official time is 2:23:35. Bah! Such is the pain of running a race that doesn’t use timing chips. I know it took me 2:21 to get to the start and I assume that extra minute and a half is from sauntering through the loooong chute waiting to turn in the tear off from my bib.

I’m keeping the 2:20, though. Forerunners may lie about distances but they do know how to tell time.

I lost it at the end. The final 300 yards involve running up hill and my legs were just shot. I couldn’t seem to muster the strength to go faster until I crested the hill and could head down the hill into the chutes.

The great part about this race is that I didn’t let my head tell my “I can’t do this”. My usual MO is to look at my Garmin and think “I’m going too fast – I need to slow down” or “My legs are so tired – I never run this fast – I need to walk”. Instead I kept thinking “hey – I’m moving at a great clip – I just need to keep this up” and I did. I decided that any pace between 11 and 10 mins/mile was fine and I just went with that and it paid off. My average pace time was 10:34.

What this event really taught me was that I’m not even close to giving it my all – I have a whole lot of something else in there and I just need to tap in to it. With a fierce new bike on the way that’s a good thing. So excited.