I ran my first half marathon in 7 years. I was supposed to run 3 or well 2 halfs and 1 18 mi race last racing season and I didn't get to do any of them.
It was my worst half to date. It was also my first half since having 3 kids. And my first half since having 2 kids. So since 3 kids it's a PR.
lack of food day before
lack of sleep
boxed in
messed up garmin
Well it's 2.5 months later and the above is all I have written for the blog post.
To elaborate, I was boxed in for about 9 miles of the 13.1. That was so annoying. It was really hard when I wanted to do run:walk intervals but you could barely get past anyone so if you stopped to walk then you couldn't pass people again.
The weather was horrible.
I feel like I mentioned lack of food the day before but 2.5 months later I don't even remember those details.
I over dressed then spent a good 4 minutes trying to get my vest and hoodie off and figure out how to hold them. I was also dealign with my hydration vest so I had to take that off to take layers off. The weather was unseasonably cold. It was a cold rain.
I didn't start my garmin as a normal run or a half marathon. it was set as a long run. I thought I'd just advance the lap at the 1 mile mark and it'd fix itself. I forgot that would advance to the optional run and miss the hour or more of the regular run. So around 40 minutes in, I realized my garmin had stopped. I started it again but I was missing over 5 minutes of distance and time. That added to confusion during the entire race.
The photos from the race said you could search by bib number but I think the weather messed that up because you couldn't read numbers on race bibs. I searched through all of the photos to find photos with me.