I think that everyone can agree with me when I say that we had an awful February. That being said I managed to continue to build up my milage and get some good quality speed workouts in.
I was a bit hesitant to sign up for the Chilly 1/2 Marathon because I wasn't sure what the weather would be like and I really didn't want to race in -15 and wind. Luckily for everyone running March 1st brought some warmer weather for us and there wasn't much wind.
Unfortunately this week my hamstrings started revolting against me. I took most of the week off from running and it was even painful to walk at some points. I spent a fair amount of time icing my hamstrings and doing activation / dynamic stretches ( I actually have the ice on my hamstrings now as I type this) . Despite my hamstrings protest I told myself I would race as I normally would but wouldn't push it if I started to feel a charlie horse coming on. I wanted to run at least a 1:13 but thought that my hamstrings may hold me back to a 1:16 -1:17. This was a race where I really needed to listen to my body even if it meant compromising my goals.
The race started and within the first few kilometres I found myself in 8th place holding a steady pace in no mans land. I ran almost the entire first half of the race alone staying around a 3:30 ish pace with 7th place a good 200m a head of me. Thankfully just before the turnaround point Ryan Tice over took me and brought our pace down to 3:25. It wasn't long before we reeled in 7th and once we did the pace started to go between 3:20-3:25. Knowing that my hamstrings were on the fritz I didn't want to push the pace at all and was hoping that they would wait until the final km before they picked it up. Luckily they waited until the last 500m to do their kick. A HUGE part of me wanted to kick as hard as I could and go with them but the more sensible part of me reasoned that 10 seconds and 2 spots at the cost of further injuring myself wasn't worth it and to just be happy that I was able to race a well as I did.
I finished 9th over all in a time of 1:11:58 . A huge PB.
I am not going to lie, I am disappointed that I wasn't able to run to the best of my ability today and leave it all out there. That being said I am thrilled with my time and I am happy to know that I have more speed to leave out there... next time.
( My Bib was 112 and I ran 2 seconds off of a 1:12 flat.... conspiracy!)
* A huge thank you to everyone in the running community that cheered me on and shouted encouragement during the race. It truly is uplifting and makes my heart beat a little stronger
- ebang