Race Recap!

Today was race day.

I felt pretty OK yesterday evening and even managed to eat a decent dinner and get to sleep on time-ish.  This morning I had a egg bagel for breakfast and cycled down to the race start at 8:30.  UK races start so much later than US ones - this half started at 10.  Weather was surprisingly nice, not raining (yay) but I wasn't feeling super energetic.

I forgot to bring my water belt or my jelly babies (run snack of choice) which was a bummer.  I had remembered to make a half marathon playlist though.  It was mostly Imagine Dragons and and Taylor Swift.

I got into my pen at 9:30.  30,000 people run the half marathon in Cardiff - it's BIG.  I hung around with the 2:15 pacer and we finally started moving towards the start line at 10:15am.

Starting Pen Selfie

I *really* needed a wee at the start, and in a stroke of genius planning there were porta potties right before the start tunnel that had a very short queue.  I ran out of the starting funnel, had a quick wee, and made it back with the 2:15 pacer still in sight.  

Starting line - amazing portapotties just to the right

I was so excited at the start of this race but rather quickly wished I had water or some sugar.  Luckily there were lots of spectators giving out candies and jelly babies so I started searching for something easy to digest.  I knew there was a gel at mile 6 and water at mile 3, so picked up a water bottle and ran with it from mile 3 onwards.

I was feeling good until about mile 5, when I started feeling less good.  I had somewhat gotten in my head about running so close to being ill... on Saturday I was feeling super groggy and wondered if perhaps I had covid, and then wondered if perhaps I would die from Myocarditis, but googling told me that only 1 in 100,000 men and .2 in 100,000 women have heart attacks during half marathons.  Since there were only 30,000 runners this meant the chance is more like 0.06% which seemed small enough.  

At mile 9 I saw a medic running with a defibrillator and a person with pink running shoes getting CPR.  I don't know what happened, I hope they are OK. (edited to add: according to the news the woman did have a cardiac arrest but survived and is recovering in the hospital)

I reminded myself that the number one goal of this race was to finish without injury.  I could tell that if I was able to push my pace I would have made it in under 2hr 20.  But, I didn't want to push.  I had spent 1hr 45 minutes with a heart rate of 180 and maybe I was too in my head, or maybe I was being sensible, but I slowed down and just kept moving.

My chip time at the end was 2:24:23.  This is a PB by 40 seconds, which feels a bit... meh. I guess it's better than missing a PB by 40 seconds?  

I took a photo at the end.  I felt very tired and a bit sick, probably because of all the jelly babies I had eaten (also the half marathon)

Then I had to cycle home, which was 4.5 miles and felt like about a hundred.

Andy meanwhile had a very cute but very high energy day with the kids on adventure, and like a champion he kept managing the kids after I got home because I was so tired and had a headache and generally felt a bit "meh" for the rest of the day.

I did cook a roast chicken dinner, and did double big kids bedtime.  I wasn't *completely* useless, but it was a much different homecoming than 2013, where we went to a bar and then watched TV for the rest of the day.

I'm not sure road half marathons are my thing.  I am still keen to do more running but I'm wondering if maybe I would enjoy trail running more. It would be cool someday to be able to run a faster half marathon, maybe, but I'm definitely not feeling the urge to sign up for any more road races soon.

It's mountain biking season now anyway.

In case you want a recap of my last half marathon, I apparently blogged one in 2013. I think I've gotten a tiny bit more sensible since then.