Ouch

Wow, I managed to break every single rule yesterday and lived to tell the story. Well, if you call this living. I'm not going to complain considering I knew better and I ignored the angel on my shoulder warning me of what would inevitably happen. I won't drone on too long, suffice to say when the gun fired at yesterday's Fredericton Half-Marathon, I started at a pretty good clip. I finished the first kilometre in 4:05. I said to myself and Ricky, who was running with me at the time, that we should slow down. So proceeded to do just that, or so I thought. If memory serves, my second split was 4:06 (or something silly). I just could not seem to get into a proper pace. Making things worse on the second loop around Ste-Anne's Pointe, I started running into throngs of 5K/10K runners. I pulled out to the left and started passing them, which ultimately meant my pace was elevating again. By the time I hit the trails, I knew it was going to be a long day. I started running with a marathoner for about 10K and I kept my pace around 4:20. The writing was on the wall, around 15K that I couldn't maintain my pace. When I hit 18K, I thought it would be smart to walk through the final aid station to collect my thoughts and rest a bit. At this point, I was on pace for 1:34 or thereabouts. I knew that was likely a pipedream but my trusty Garmin told me I was roughly 600 metres ahead of schedule (I had paced myself for 1:36). Sadly, once I stopped moving at the aid station, it was game over. I couldn't continue running. I run/walked for the final 3K. I have never walked in a race -- ever. I ended up finishing in 1:41.
I'm disappointed in my race but not because my time was five minutes slower than I've ever run a half-marathon before, but because I knew better. This result was completely avoidable. My Garmin normally reminds me to hold back in the early going of a race and for whatever reason I just forged ahead knowing that I would die in about 15K or so. The heat was also a factor, if it was about five degrees cooler, I probably wouldn't have crashed so hard on the course. This race has definitely reminded me that I can't just race without the proper preparation. It has also motivated me to start training for the fall.