Mentally Defeated

Let me start by saying I DID NOT get a bad time at the Reston Half Marathon today. Not by a long shot.... But I repeatedly told myself I was going to PR this race. If I had kept up the same pace for the last 3 miles that I had for the first 10, I wouldn't be writing a blog post now. But I was...defeated? Hit a wall? No, that's not possible for a half marathon ;-/ You don't 'hit a wall'.

According to RunKeeper my time is 1:51:22. I think the official results will show a few seconds less - time to start, time to stop, etc. But it should be pretty close. My half marathon PR was 3 years ago, a time of 1:49:32. It was a much flatter course. I chose this race today because Reston's courses are notorious for hills, and I wanted something slightly comparable to the Blue Ridge Marathon course in 2 weeks.

It didn't feel good. From start to finish I never 'felt great', never got a runner's high, or anything remotely close.  I felt nauseous multiple times. And I know it was my poor pacing that set up my failure.

I took off like I was running a 5k or something. I don't know why. I'm sure people who saw me assumed 1 of 2 things:

1. I was a crazy talented runner who has qualified for Boston multiple times, or
2. I was a novice who had no idea what I was doing

Now, neither is correct, but the 2nd would be closer to accurate. At mile 10 I puttered out. My legs were in shock and I felt completely numb. I tried to run up the steep hills, but everyone was passing me; my 'run' was really an awkward looking walk with vigorous arm movements.

I'm just replaying everything I did wrong - and how I could've done so much better had I paced myself from the start. I know I could've ran faster the last 3 -4 miles and broken my 1:49 PR... which is all I wanted to do. Meh, I'm going to take a long bath with epsom salts and try to shake the negative feelings off.

2 weeks to Roanoke.... I've gotta get my mental game back on track.

India