Last Chance Half Marathon

The LC half was my first half marathon that I had ever run. I really like running races that I had previously run to see how I have progressed. I like seeing time improvements and my next running goal is to get under 1:50 for a half. But going to this run I was pretty sure that I would not meet that goal. My running lately has been...well....shit. I have done one "long" run in the past 2 months I think and it was only 14km. My weekly run totals have been abysmal.

I had signed up for this one almost as soon as it opened up, I know that it always sells out. My wife's original due date was Nov 24th. I figured that even if she was a week early it would be no problem. I wasn't counting on almost 3 weeks early, lol. I have been trying to help Shelly out as much as possible. She pumps milk while I feed Logan and usually change him. I encourage her to nap and sacrifice a bit of sleep to let her rest. My sleep is definitely not great this past week.

For the last week I debated even racing due to the circumstances. Luckily I have a very supporting wife. Last night she let me sleep the whole night and get a good sleep before the race. I had decided that I would make a final decision in the morning. When I woke up this morning I was still pretty bagged. For a few minutes I was thinking...I could just go back to bed and get more needed sleep. But then I had a talk with myself. "Shut the F*#& up and run". OK so I probably would not get the time I wanted but run it anyway. I can sleep later and tough the distance out of I had to. I am running today!

Met up with a few people I know for work and the gym and chatted for a while. I was actually feeling pretty good and was ready to get going. The race started and I pretty quickly got settled in. There was a bit of a head wind as we headed out, I decided to not push hard for the first 10km, last thing I wanted to do was to blow up on the second half. I was getting passed by a fair number of people which normally doesn't happen to the degree it was. I very quickly got over it ;).

I made it to the first first turn around which was manned by Chad from team legend and our coach Greg. Kinda funny getting water from your coach during a race. After a brief stop to drink I was off again. A nice flat path and a bit of a tail wind...wahooo. I really didn't notice the tailwind but I did notice the lack of headwind. Things were pretty uneventful until after the last turn around. I felt pretty good until about 17km. I was feeling good from a cardio perspective but my legs were feeling pretty heavy. But that comes with not running as much as I should be.

I decided to take it relatively easy until km 19 and then give it everything after that. Wellll that didn't really pan out. I just stayed the course for the last 4 km and ran a steady pace. Less than 1k left and we had to run up the ramp to get over to Prince's Island. I did run it, no walking lol. I picked up the pace at the top of the ramp and was going to finish strong.

I decided that sub 2hrs and I would be happy. I saw the clock and saw that I would indeed be sub 2. I had barely looked at my garmin through out the whole race. I actually felt good as a crossed the line...just tired. My finish time was 1:58:45 ish.

I am so glad I talked myself into running today, it felt really good to get out. I came home and got to spend some time with my son and let me wife have a nap. I now have a pair of last chance medals, lol. I laughed when I saw that they were the exact same medals. I would have liked to see something unique from last year, lol. Next up....Hypothermic Half in feb...and I will get below 1:50 ;).