Misson Accomplished!

Today I ran the half marathon in under 90 minutes! All the training has paid off and I have a new PB of 85:51!

More to come later - off to sleep now...

The Race

I work up on the morning of the race at 3.30am. The plan was to get up at 4am but once awake, I decided to get out there early. A clear day, it was still dark but was forecast for sun - not that I was expecting to be out in the sun too long given a 6.20am start.

After eating a Powerbar and getting ready, I had to wait for the train to Milson's Point as I was way too early! The pre-start was pretty easy going and we didn't even line up until about 15mins before the race - very different than the City2Surf start. I didn't get a great start, being stuck behind some slow runners but it cleared out after a couple of hundred metres and my quest to beat the 90 minute mark was under way.

I knew as I was going over the bridge that I was going out too hard but I decided just to keep going at under 4min/ks for as long as I could - which turned out to be about 7km...

I took an energy gel at about 9km and after the turn around point I just tried to stick as close to 4min/k as I could on the way back into the city. As the hills (inclines really but who's counting?) starting looming I found I was slowing down and ran a couple of 4:15s and even a 4:21 at one point. I could tell that by the 16km mark, I had lost the sub-84 goal that I secretly had and that I would be lucky to go sub-85. Then not soon after I realised I'm looking at 86+ unless I picked up the pace.

As I got into the familiar surrounds of Hickson Road at around 18km, I made an effort to catch the three guys I could see in front of me. I had spent the last 4-5km running pretty much alone and I figured I was the tail end of the sub-85 hopefuls. I didn't have much left as we came into the finish stretch at the Opera House but managed a little 50m sprint to the line. My guntime turned out to be 85:59 so I'm glad I dug in at the end!

As I crossed the line, I was happy to finally put the sub-90 goal to rest. After the Melbourne Marathon, I will start work on some new goals. Sub-80, here I come!