My final PB of the season

This is my RM Race Report. I will offer some more insight later today on my splits and more post-race analysis.

I'm the first to admit that I in no way deserved to PB yesterday. I trained five or six days a week leading up to the Ottawa half-marathon just to have a meltdown, literally and figuratively. Heading into Sunday's race, I had only run 20K once since Ottawa (which was last weekend) and had never logged more than 40K in a week since July. Sunday morning I woke up and played with my daughter for an hour or so and then packed up my stuff and drove to Moncton. I arrived at the event about 45 minutes early and I was in a mental fog. I tried warming up but it was so chilly I didn't want to spend too much time outside. I chatted with Dani and Trish as well as a few other friends who were racing the half-marathon. Normally I have a very specific warm-up ritual, but yesterday I felt almost underwhelmed by what I was about to do and just had a short and simple warm-up.
Once I stepped into the starting chute, I started to get nervous, staring at all the super fast runners who I know and realizing how totally unprepared I was compared to them. I kept telling myself, "start slow, start slow." The siren went off and four minutes later I passed the first kilometre marker. So much for racing the plan. That said, I felt great, my legs were fresh and I was really relaxed. I kept trying to slow down my pace as we looped through a residential part of the city. By the time we hit the trail near the Petitcodiac River, I was averaging 4:17 min/k splits, which were way faster than the 4:30 min/k I had planned but I felt like I was in the zone so I just went with it.
Coming off the Gunningsville Bridge, we turned onto a trail and directly into a headwind. I thought to myself, "Ok, here is where I'll fall apart. I'm terrible in wind." But there were some supporters on the trail cheering us on, so I couldn't falter quite yet and before I knew it, we turned and the wind was at our back. Running down a main street, one woman yelled out to me, "If it was easy, everyone would do it!" That really motivated me to keep my pace strong. Just before turning back onto the bridge, I saw Dani and Trish who looked really strong. Once on the bridge, I passed a few people who had been ahead of me the entire race and I ended up meeting a guy who I ran with for about two kilometres. This was his first half-marathon so we chatted about the challenges of the distance and various likes and dislikes. It really helped calm any nerves that persisted about my pace. Once we turned back on Main Street, I saw the UNB Cross-Country captain who pulled up. I asked if he needed a course marshal, he just waved me on, saying he was done for the day. That is too bad, he is an amazing runner.
With 5K left, I just bore down and pushed to the end. There were several small hills that stood in the way and I just clung to a consistent pace, knowing there was a big hill just before the entry to the school. At this point, the course really got packed, I had 10Kers coming at me, while I was passing marathoners and half-marathon/marathon walkers. I could no longer tell who I was racing and who was in other events. That frustrated me at the time but it also meant it was pointless turning around to see who was coming behind me, which really let me focus on the final 2K.
When I powered up that final hill, turned into the school and let it fly into the finish chute, I had no idea how far ahead of my PB I actually was. Careful not to pull a Cheruiyot, I didn't look down at my Garmin until after I stepped over the finishing mat and then it hit me, I PB'd by almost three minutes! At that point, I almost slipped and hit my head.
Leading up to Sunday when my friends asked me what my goal was, I said sub-1:40 but I was pacing myself for 1:36. So to run 1:31:32, I am absolutely ecstatic. I was hoping to use this race as a motivational tool to get mentally ready to start marathon training in December. Well, mission accomplished. What I've taken from the race is that I built a solid base during the summer and now I just need to recover well and starting building up my mileage again slowly for my marathon training.
My final stats were:
Overall: 18/361
Age group: 3/21
Total time: 1:31:35
Chip time: 1:31:32