sigh.
Anyway, on race day I got to the start line with about 10 minutes to spare. My goal was to come in at about 1:50. It was a beautiful sunny day with no humidity and about 25 degrees or so at the start (7am). It was probably 27-30 by the end.
I was feeling pretty good throughout the race- never did I feel that "I'm gonna die" sensation. The half-marathon is the PERFECT distance to run! At about the halfway point I accidentally stopped my watch, and from then on I had only a rough idea of my pace (only a few of the mile marker clocks were working).
What I found really tough, actually, was pacing myself in miles (even before my watch stopped). When I've run Canadian races, I have a much more frequent reminder of whether I'm on pace or not, and if I'm off it's easier to fix it. I knew that to come in under 1:50 I'd have to be at about an 8:20 mile. This didn't happen!! I'm confident that I could have run the race on pace if I had either worn a garmin or had kilometre markings to tell me if I needed to speed up. However, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, every day would be Christmas, or so my dad says! Anyway, this was a VERY good lesson to learn for Detroit!
I ended up finishing in 1:55:30. Not a PB (my PB is 1:52) but I was OK with it. There's lots of room for improvement at Scotiabank! I felt great after the run- good enough for some more "intervals" of the Magnificent Mile. Dave and I went on an architectural cruise had a crazy-good steak dinner that night, and we even managed to walk around for the morning today before making the looooong drive home.
All in all it was a fun weekend but I wouldn't recommend that race. Wait for the real one (the full in October)! See my review for more details about the race itself.
