The Obviously Outstanding Okanagan Half

This was the least fit I've ever been for a half marathon. But on the bright side, one of the healthiest as well!
The day started out great. The weather was warm - much warmer than my nerves initially realized.

Shoe laces double knotted...check! Geared up and ready to go! Or so we thought...

Fortunately amongst all the people crammed into the starting crowd, I spotted my dad holding up the race posters I had made earlier with a friend. So my sis and I squeezed over to him and quickly delayered. For myself, it was a simple matter of unzipping my jacket and passing it over.

While my sister discretely swaps over to cooler layers at the race start, my mom decides this is the optimum time for a photo. Really, Mom? Really?

 Not forgetting the gorgeous scenery at the start line

 And a special statue to commemorate Ogopogo, seen here ready to kick the Loch Ness Monster's butt.

The gun went off and I new just what to do. THIS time... THIS time I would be following my race plan and not jettying it out the window in the first few hundred metres.

My plan was simple and more humble than my normal race plans. But unlike in other races, going in to this one I had no delusions about my level of fitness and didn't even plan to try hit a sub-2hr time. Instead, I thought that maybe, just maybe - with good weather, a flat course, my speedy sister at my side and a strong commitment to those elusive "negative splits" - maybe I could make a PB.

You see, my previous record was June 2011 on the Doomben course, when I ran it in 2.05.28. Doing all my math, that worked out to about 5.55min/km.

Feeling strong and optimistic the first 50m in. Only 21.05km to go!

Thus, my race plan was as follows:
1-11k: Run between a 5.55-6.00min/km pacek. (12k is usually where I burn up and give out...or is that burn out and give up?).
Divide the next part of the course into 2x 5k runs. At each 5k interval, aim to improve the speed by just a little bit.
12-16km: 5.50-5.55min/km
17-21k: 5.45-5.50min/km.

With these times, I would get both my unremmittant A1-Goal of running a PB, and my newly established A2-Goal of running negative splits!

Humble [compared to all my previous half marathon race goals], but doable. I hoped!

And what was my B-Goal, you may ask? That was to run a sub-2h10min.

But remember I wasn't running this alone! However, my sister's goal - running without stopping - was a perfect one for her first half marathon, and super achievable since she could run circles around me at any race any distance any day of the week.

 Still smiling at the 10k mark. I even have the energy to ward off off invisible ninja's with a Ninja-chop wave.

 Even in a cast my mom still came out with clappers to cheer.

Off we went into our second loop (the race did a semi-figure 8, so at least we didn't have to do the same lap twice). The second lap was even prettier than the first, which was a nice bonus.

From the start, my sister had been like a horse going to corral and I had to keep reigning her back in. Some fellow Running Room gals passed us and off she galloped. "Woah, there!" I called out. "We're going a little too fast."
Heather was trusting me to the timing/pacing, so she pulled back. For a time. Until the next person passed us (and we were passed a lot in those first 7k, even though we had deliberately hung back a respectable distance at the starting gate). In the meantime, I had discovered this cool setting with my fancy watch. For years I'd been using this watch and I never knew it had a "lap pace" option.
What's a lap pace option, you ask? Why, it shows you your predicted/expected pace for that lap. And as it so happens, my laps were set to 1km intervals. So instead of watching my GPS go ballistic trying to configure my exact pace at any given time, it would calmly tell me if I were to finish my current km within the target time frame.

Those of you who know all this already are probably rolling your eyes. But for me, it was a revelation! I had always been doing mental math in my head ("okay, so I've just run 17minutes 22seconds and my watch says I've hit 3kms. So that would mean that my average pace right now is...which means that I if I maintain this pace I will finish the race in...).

Only this time it was mindless.

But I digress.

Because not long after this sign at 10k...

...we hit this sign at 13.75k...

 

...Okay, I lied. There was no sign at 13.75k. These are just random scenery shots from the starting area of our course.

But 13.75k was memorable for me. Why is that? Simply, it is the point on the race when I got tired.

Just over 1/3 of the course left to go...Visions of a fast PB time on the clock as I crossed the finish line danced around in my mind, fighting with the little demons telling me to stop, rest, catch your breath. And most prominently, you can't do this. Just give up.

My enthusiastic waves to volunteers and supporters became wrist twitches I doubt anyone noticed. My smile turned into a snarl as I sucked in air. Upon previous agreement, Heather kept on talking while I occasionally grunted in response.

One thought stayed strong in my mind, trying to quash the little demon telling me to give up: you are SO CLOSE to that PB! You CAN'T give up now! This is what you have been training for. How grumpy would you be if you gave up SO CLOSE to the finish?

So then I did my inward focussing: I told myself that if I acted like I wasn't going to make it, then I wasn't going to make it. I used every trick I knew how:

>>I mantra'd. Fast arms, fast feet... Steady breath, strong legs...
>>I did mental math. (If I drop down to a 6min pace right now when there are 4k's left to go, what will my finishing time be?). Fear of not making it drove me on.
>>I sang. (Thanks, Shane, for showing me that huffing out a silent version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" helps me control my breathing.) And let me tell you, Mary had lots of little lambs chasing me on that homeward stretch.

So how did we do, in the end?
1-11k split times (goal 5.55-6.00): 5.55 / 5.56 / 5.56 / 5.53 / 5.56 / 5.53 / 5.55 / 5.56 / 5.57 / 5.51 / 5.53
12-16k split times (goal 5.50-5.55): 5.47 / 5.47 / 5.49 / 5.52 / 5.43
17-21k split times (goal 5.45-5.0): 5.35 / 5.40 / 5.39 / 5.42 / 5.33

Gun time: 2.04.20
Net time: 2.03.36
Average Pace: 5.52min/km
Category Place (Females 20-29): 75/169
Gender Place: 275/693
10k split time: 1.00.06min

To Recap:
Goal 1A = Run a PB (sub 2.05.28) - ACHIEVED. And it's the best kind of PB! It's the PB where the minutes changed. Yes, I could have run a 2.05.02 and been okay-happy with it, but how much more awesome is it that I can say the minute changed. Because now I can cut off the seconds and just say with the cool head-tip/nod, "Yeah, I can run a half marathon in two-oh-three."
Goal 1B = Run negative splits - ACHIEVED.

Proud Sisters

Heather, Me, and my Running Room friend Rachel showing off our medals. I am The Voice of Experience in this crew, as for both Heather and Rachel it was their first half marathon...but hopefully not their last!

Post-race ice bath for the legs in the cold Okanagan waters. Brr!

Walking back to our hotel, Heather and I proudly held up cheering signs for those still running in the marathon. Surprisingly, none of the marathoners took Heather up on her offer, although a few spectators did.

Support Crew

I am one of the lucky ones. The verrryyyy lucky ones.
There is barely a race that I've run without support. Now I'm not talking about the organized volunteers handing out water and making sure I don't make a wrong turn (although that is pretty awesome, too). I'm talking about friends waking up at 4am and indulging my "let's get to the race start an hour and a half before the gun goes off at 6am" pre-race anxiety. I'm talking about friends who stand out in the cold for that hour and a half with me as I bounce around to the washroom, to warm-up, to chat nervously with people I recognize, back to the washroom, etc. And then they stand for another 2+ hours as they wait patiently for me to finish the race. What they do in that time, I don't know. All I know is that when I run those long km's on the back half of a half marathon, the thought of those special people watching for me in the crowd keep me going. And when I come around the corner to the finish line, there they are; cheering and screaming and encouraging me to that finish.

So when a few of my fellow running group friends decided to run the small (capped at 1000) but beautiful (running through Fish Creek Park) Harvest Half Marathon, what else was I to do on a Saturday morning but go and support them?
One of my fellow pace group gals and good friends picked me up with pre-race jitters at 6.15am for a 7.45am race. I know what that feels like! What I didn't expect was the pre-support crew jitters that kept me up at crazy hours the night before. Thoughts of, "What if I sleep in and forget? Did I bring enough warm clothes if it's cold? Should I pack more snacks?" Danced through my head. I guess I had such high standards from my own support crew experiences that I wanted to live up to those.

We wandered around, met up with the others, the gun went off....and....now what? The first person we were expecting to see was planning to cross the finish line at 1h40. So what are two Canadian supporters to do for the next 90minutes while we waited? Go to Tim Horton's of course!
With two of us, the time just flew by and before we knew it we were back at the race start watching people zip in to the finish. It was fun to watch the display of emotions. Some people laughed, some cried, some looked stunned (particularly the poor guy who face-planted 50m from the finish line), and a lot had that grimace of intense focus.

The support crew legacy lives on

There weren't many supporters to this small race, but they were encouraging. And nobody had as cool signs as we did! Another gal was going to come in support but work had called her out of town, so she helped me make up the race signs that we could hold up and cheer people on with. I don't know if anyone actually read the signs or if they were too focussed on the finish. But I do know that watching my friends cross the finish line and being able to cheer their names and congratulate them...that was pretty amazing. That is what the running community is about. It may be a solo sport, but everyone has their own personal cheerleaders in the form of other runners. And whatever the time you ran in, whatever your feelings on the race, we are there to support you, because you matter.

My incredible Australian friends taught me that.

 Only the truth!

Winner

I'd forgotten that feeling of feeling like a winner. It doesn't always mean winning races or even getting a personal best. Sometimes I feel like a winner when I just have a really good workout.

What can I say about tonight except Goal Achieved?

I wasn't setting my expectations high when I started out on our 6k tempo. My legs were still sore from Sunday's long run, and admittedly I had been eating lots of yummy junk food all day, topping it off with a bowl of ice cream right before I went out into the cold windy weather to run.
The goal was negative splits. And I was bound and determined that this time - THIS TIME - I would actually do negative splits!
I set off with some of my favourite gals and we had what I thought was a decent tempo run plan: 5.40 pace the first 3k then 5.30 pace the second 3k.

The first 3k set a not-so-surprising trend: 5.33...5.35...5.37...all a little too fast for the goal plan. The first two k's especially, I was worried. I felt I could maintain this or maintain close to this, but negative splits? That was gonna be tough!

We hit the turn around point and knuckled down for the final 3k.

First k: 5.22. Excellent! I felt it was tough, but I was feeling pretty good.
Second k: 5.15. Whoop! Even faster! I made the mistake of calling out the time to my crew. My sister then suggested, "let's do a negative split on this last km." Huh. I mean, I was feeling okay but going even faster? Yikes.
But then a funny thing happened. I remembered back to all those 1k repeats I did in Australia and how I consistently cracked a sub-5min time. Oh, how much I miss those 1k repeats! No, this isn't sarcastically spoken. They were a kick-ass way for me to learn to self-judge speed and learn that my mind holds me back from what I'm capable of doing. So I listened to that memory and pushed that little bit harder.
Third k: 5.05. And the best part was, I felt really good at the end. Tired? Yep! But definitely I felt I could have kept going a little faster for a little longer...

I wonder, is this what it normally feels like to run a negative split? Is it typical to end on such a high note? Further investigation of using negative splits in my running is warranted to scientifically quantify this feeling to determine if it is a fluke or a trend.