Hypo half

First off, I feel a great sense of relief being done with this race. Partly because I was group leading for it and when you're group leading you are never showing up to your own training run or to your own 'race' even. But the upside is you get to help people accomplish their goals. That was the big success of yesterday's race.

Becky and Laurel have been showing up to every single long run/clinic night/tempo run/hill run that was scheduled. Their dedication and determination was phenomenal. They continued to inspire me, even though I was often puzzled and annoyed at why anyone would show up to run when it's -30 and windy. On our longer runs we would pick it up sometimes near the end and I would hold their race pace for a couple of minutes before telling them "this is your race pace" (about 6:45/km for a 2:30 half) they couldn't figure out how we would be able to run a race so much faster than our long slow runs but I assured them they would. In fact I could tell that either of them with the confidence to push themselves out of their comfort zones could train for a faster half.

Race day came, I was pretty tired from three days of hell cleaning up kids barf (kids seem to get sick WHENEVER something important is coming up) and although I had been gobbling ColdFX I wasn't feeling 100% My only concern was getting these women to a 2:30 half marathon or less.

The first five KM we were closer to on track for a 2:15 - 2:20 half marathon. We even caught some clinic members who weren't having their day and had to slow down. With the boost that passing them provided us Laurel was off at the 10km point chasing her PB finish for her first half marathon. Becky remained with me and we pushed through the hurt of the last third. We finished nicely in 2:29. Goal met.

I got some of the warmest hugs from Becky and Laurel. I had tears in my eyes from seeing Laurel finish her first half marathon so strong. She started with me when I helped out the 5km RR clinic and you would never have picked this woman out to be finishing a half in less than a year... and with great strength and guts and smiles.

Becky was a great inspiration too telling me to stick with her when I told her to go ahead and run her own race. She said no, you keep up, haha!

Anyway, it's not my personal best but I wasn't really training for a PB at this race. While I have trained with and see the merits in the running room's schedule/program I can see there are also different ways of training for speed on the run and I am happy to be able to focus on that for now.

My swim and bike have been going quite well. Once a week I do a time-trial on the bike and I can see the strength in my legs building over time. The pool is my happy place and always has been. I think I might see my biggest improvements in the water this year but overall I'm just enjoying getting back to the fitness and health that the training brings.