I wasn't sure what time I would be aiming for and what I was capable of. I indicated on my entry form that I would get 2:00:00, but considering the intense training that I did over 2 weeks, 1:45:00 was a long shot. In the end, I ran 1:52:16. This is my second best half marathon time, 5 minutes outside my personal best. Not bad for 2 weeks training, but I felt I could have done better.
I started pretty fast during the early stages race, probably the fastest splits I have run in a half marathon race. I felt quite comfortable, but after passing each kilometre marking, I was running at approximately 5:20 splits. This was way too slow to achieve 1:45:00, so my aspirations at completing the half marathon in 1:45:00 went down the toilet by around the 5 km mark. Trying to beat my personal best time of 1:47:08 was also out of the equation at the pace I was running. Perhaps I could get under 1:50:00.
Then the unthinkable happened. Kilometre 9 saw me virtually lame. I encountered an intense stabbing pain in the solar plexus region, like someone stabbed me in the stomach. It wasn't like a runners stitch, and I have never felt this kind of pain whilst running. Every deep breath basically made the pain worse, as if someone twisted the knife deeper, so I was forced to walk for a few hundred metres. I felt as if time was slipping away from me fast. Eventually I managed to start jogging again, but the pace was considerably slower, and the pain didn't subside quickly enough. At one point I even thought my stomach was blocked!
I got to the 10 km mark in just under 53 minutes, 3 minutes outside my intended race pace. It was going to be a very big ask to set a personal best, but 1:50:00 was still within reach. But the pain in my stomach region wasn't helping things, and I was running slightly slower than I wanted. I figured the pain was probably due to the Leppin shot I took at kilometre 6, so I tried ingesting a lot of fluid, but that didn't really help things.
Then the bigger hills started to open up just before the Harbour Bridge. Normally I would accelerate up hills, but this time I had very little bounce. The Harbour Bridge, which I absolutely devoured in the marathon last year, reduced me to a mere shuffle and I was starting to get tired. On the downgrade of the bridge, I started getting cramps in both of my gastrocnemius (in layman's terms, that is your upper calf muscle responsible for generating strength and power). Alarmed at the pain, I altered my running style, which caused me to run even slower. I was afraid that if I did use the full range of motion in my stride I would cramp up again. By the time I passed 17 km, the watch said 1:30:00. That was 20 minutes for 4.1 remaining kilometres. It was a pretty tall order!
And so it was. Though I managed to stave away further cramps in my legs, I was running at reduced pace. I tried to make a sprint for the finish with around 1.5 km to go, but the finishing kick was way too early and I got tired too easily, which forced me to walk for around 15 seconds to catch my breath. Too many people were passing me at this stage. I just gritted my teeth and tried to run hard towards the finish. 1:50:00 was now not on the cards, so I had to settle for a respectable time as close to 1:50:00 as possible. The finish line was in sight dead straight ahead and I started to run hard. With around 3 metres to go to the finish line, I slowed down to a walk, raised both arms in the air as if I had won, and crossed the finish line. It may have cost me a few seconds, but I had to do that in order to finish on a high what had been an average race for me.
After the race, there was a marquee set up by my company, where BBQ food and cold drinks were on offer to replenish those tired runners. The sun started to shine, and it was a great feeling to lie on the grass in the warm sun, relaxing after a very hard running effort.
Looking back at my race performance on the day, I have a strong idea what went wrong, and how it tied back to my preparation for the race. It basically came down to insufficient training. Points to note are:
- Not enough mileage. The total distance that I ran in training was only 90 km. That is pretty poor preparation. Overall I had 9 days worth of running, and if I was to do well, I needed more time and more mileage.
- Not enough variety. I only did track work which focused on speed, and a couple of tempo runs on the road. There was very little hill running at all. That might explain how I was so flat climbing the Harbour Bridge.
- No training with Leppin shots. This was the first time that I took a Leppin shot while running. I should have done this earlier in training, rather than on race day, to see if it would affect my running in any way. The pain in my stomach may have been caused by a Leppin shot and unfortunately caused me a great deal of pain on race day. If I had practiced taking Leppin shots in training, I may have detected this earlier, and would have come up with some ways to mitigate this.
All in all, the training wasn't a complete write-off. I still managed my second best half marathon time. And it certainly brought me back to some old running form. Whether I can keep this up is another story.
