SMH Half Marathon - new PB!

I was very surprised by the outcome of today's race. I was a little unsure of my preparation 6 weeks after the Canberra marathon and with few long runs or tempo work. Actually the only runs I'd done at all have been the two HuRTS sessions in the week and the occasional weekend race. Hardly any biking and no swimming for cross training either.

Plus I've never done this particular Half Marathon before and had heard a lot about the difficultly of the hilly course. So I thought I'll go hard, push for sub 85mins and see how I do. I certainly didn't expect a PB.

After a horrible southerly change of cold air, wind and driving rain last night, this morning started off still, clear and fairly chilly. Perfect running weather. I jogged into the city from home over the harbour bridge with Chris and a mate of his, then said farewell at Hyde Park and dumped my bag and tried to push as far up as possible at the starting crush.

I thought I had to pee, but I'd urinated 3 times that morning and was sure it was psychological, plus the race started in 10 mins and the portaloo queues were 20 deep so it just wasn't happening. Suck it up Mike!

No much problem getting clear at the start, but then again it's probably all down to expectations. I heard it's always a horrible crush, but maybe the new starting point cleared things up a bit because also I had to do some weaving, it really wasn't enough to claim that it slowed me down at all. I did see a couple of collisions though when the road narrowed!

I went out fairly hard and planned to keep it that way. No km splits, I intended to run by feel (and as it turned out I didn't see any km markers until the 7km, then only sporadically thereafter). I looked at the people around me after a while and just picked certain people to try stay with. This plan did me well, I focussed on a couple of guys and kept surging past them and having them surge past me.

My heart rate was stuck between 169 and 171 for most of the race and I was always right on the edge of the fastest pace I could possibly maintain. The hills were overrated, they weren't bad at all and I made an effort to lower my heartrate just before them and cruise up at a fastish, but not suicidal, pace.

I had a great lift when I saw Sarah on the second lap near the turnoff to Hickson Road, she'd surprised me by riding her bike in to cheer me on! The course was wide and enjoyable, the morning was absolutely gorgeous, the scenery around the harbour was lovely, and I only noticed this all fairly absently as I tried to grimly keep with the guys around me. I felt I was slowing down a million times, I surged a million times and I slowed again a million times. Getting to that last km marker (one of the few which I noticed) was a glorious thing!

The last 500m was slightly faster, about my limit by that stage, and I was spent when I crossed the line in just over 83mins. I sat down on a crate to take off my chip, sucked in the deep breaths and felt completely spent, I don't think I could have run the race any harder. A good feeling.

So I haven't got the official result yet, and forgot to stop my watch at the line, but I definitely beat my half marathon pb of last September (which was 83:33). Watch this space!

I felt pretty good afterwards, the recovery was very quick considering how hard I had pushed. Sarah and I met up with Niamh and we all went across the road to Bodhi for a vegan yum cha brunch - oh so yummy! Top day.

UPDATE
Offical Results
Gun time - 1:23:35
Net time – 1:23:15

A PB on both!

Time –- HR -- Dist
26:57 -– 169 –- 7km
27:36 –- 172 –- 14km
28:41 –- 171 -– 21km