Thrill of Victory, Agony of Defeat: Paris Half 2013

I am probably the least competitive person on my triathlon team. I like to have goals and meet them, but that's it. Also feel like if you don't meet a goal, just analyse why, try to make appropriate changes and then meet it the next time.

I ran the Paris half marathon yesterday (semi marathon de Paris) and did it as a matter of principle-- I'd signed up for it a few years ago, didn't train and ended up not running it.

So I ran it yesterday. While victory and defeat are strong terms, here are the pros and cons.

The positive points were that lots of my friends did it, too-- I started out running with a dear friend of mine and it was great to have a buddy to wait for the start with. My wave started 25 minutes after the advertised start time... Felt more confident at the start than before any previous half and felt good at the end, too, better than at the end of previous halves. Also easiest recovery so far, feel fine today and even doing a recovery jog tonight. I was happy with my split times (up until the last 6k anyway). The sun came out, that strange glowing orb that we haven't seen all winter! Oh, how we've missed it! And it felt great to run in short sleeves in the sun.

The negative points were that I'd been trying for under 2 hours (like 1:55-1:59), but just missed it at 2:01. While this is a respectable time, 2:01 is also kind of a stupid time. A little annoyed by the 01...
My non-fitness friends are impressed and find a 2-hour half pretty fast. My fitness friends offer me their condolences, as if a 2:01 half marathon is the equavalent of my mother dying. Or they tell me encouragingly (I think it's meant to be encouraging, anyway, but it just comes off as slightly accusatory), with all your training over the last month, you should have been able to do it in under 2.

My own reaction is more philosophical. While it's too bad, it is not a devastating tragedy in my life, either and since I can't redo the 2013 Paris half marathon (not this year, anyway), will have to do another half this year. Like maybe in the fjords in Norway. I do, however, think I can run a sub-2 half marathon and will just figure out what I did wrong and not do it next time.

So what went wrong? It was mainly the last 6k. They took me 36 min when they should have taken about 32. This is mainly what got in the way of the sub-2. Also kms 10-15 took 30 min when they should have been about 27 min (like the km 1-5 and 5-10 splits did), so this is where I lost some time, too.

So the marathon training is going to have to intensify this month and I'll really really really have to work on negative splits (when the second half of your run is faster than the first half, since I clearly didn't do it yesterday). Luckily, I have a secret weapon: an ironman coach!