Conquering the fear

"I think you are capable of running faster, you're just afraid" he said. Those words resonated with me all week. Was I? What's the worst that could happen if I ran a little faster... pushed myself a little harder? I might get tired and have to slow down. That's not so bad. Finally on my Thanksgiving day run, I put this theory to the test. I decided to run through the fear. I pushed passed the voice in my head that said I wasn't capable of going faster. There were some hills on this five mile run. The uphills were slower, so I made up some time on the downhill. I just let go.. and ran. I pushed my legs and more importantly, I pushed my mind. I let go of being afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep it up. And it was working. I felt great. I didn't check my pace during the run, I just went by how I felt. I got done and was pleasantly surprised to find my overall pace at 8:29. I had a couple of runs that fast during my training for the Monterey half marathon, but I didn't feel this good after.

I was scheduled to run 3 miles on Friday and then have Saturday off before the Seattle half on Sunday. I woke up on Friday however and the pouring rain was discouraging. I decided to have two rest days. :)  I had heard the Seattle half was moderately hilly, although looking at the elevation map, it didn't seem so bad. I decided I couldn't let the course discourage me. My last half (which was in March!), I ran in 1:55. So I said my goal for this one was 1:50, even though knocking off 5 minutes seemed a little daunting.

Race started at 7:30am. Thankfully, no rain was on the forecast and it turned out to be a beautiful day for a run.

Space Needle @ the starting line

Half Marathon Start Line

Found a nice stranger to take my picture

My first mile was a little slow as it took some time to get through the crowd and pass some of the slower runners, but then I picked up the pace. The race started at the Seattle Center and the first mile is up 5th Avenue to the I-90. I was pushing myself as much as possible. I figured even if I couldn't keep up the pace, it'd still help my overall pace. The first 6 miles felt great and I was starting to think they were lying about the hills. Then in mile 7 we got a hill... and we kept getting them through Madrona Park. It was not my favorite. But I powered through and tried to pick it back up when it was flat again. At mile 10 I was at 1:22 and I realized I was doing great. And there were only 3 more miles to go. I kept checking my watch to make sure I hadn't accidentally slowed down. At mile 11, I realized I could not only reach my goal, but I could beat it. One last hill in the last mile and then I did my best to run it in. I was more than ecstatic to cross the finish line in the 1 hour and 48th minute. Official time: 1:48:26. All of the training has been well worth it. I beat my last time by 7 minutes and set a new personal best. I couldn't wait to make a phone call and tell him I wasn't afraid anymore. And I killed the half.

Post-race

I realized last night that so far... all of my training has been working up to the half marathon and usually I'd be taking a break after the race. But this half is just another weekend long run for me... it's not even the halfway point in my marathon training. It was good to see where I'm at and get me excited about racing... but the training continues. I've never run longer than 13.1 miles, but I'm looking forward to the craziness ahead.

This also meant that I didn't celebrate with peanut M&M's like I have in the past. But! I did celebrate with this:

Soy caramel macchiato and homemade pumpkin bread :)