Hypothermic Half Marathon :)

February 20th, 2022

I haven't raced a half marathon for quite a few years now, and by that I mean a half marathon outside of the winter months, when weather conditions are far more favourable and one can actually wear singlet and shorts and a pair of road running shoes. But with a full marathon in my race plans for 2022, I wanted to do a half just to get my mind back into racing on the roads, and pushing the pace when there is no excuse to stop.

Today I did the Hypothermic Half Marathon. It was the second time I had done it, and having "given up" a couple of years ago when I did from sheer boredom (yes, I really got bored running on the roads back then!), I kind of made myself go into today's race with a much more positive outlook.

This past few weeks, I have been doing marathon paced runs, so I wanted to run the Hypo Half at my target marathon pace. This is currently around 7.30 minute miling, and whilst I still feel like this is a little ambitious right now, that pace is starting to feel easier and I think by May it will be possible. Weather wise, the past week has been a bit hit and miss and we've had milder days where we've been above freezing, and a couple of days where it's been just below freezing and snowing. I was kind of hoping we would get lucky for race day, but temperatures yet again fell well below zero overnight, and by the time I was lining up at the start outside the Highlands Gold Course in Edmonton, we were back to -20 degrees celsius with light snow ... bbrrr!

 

I'd set myself a target finishing time of sub 1.45, but was quietly hoping for closer to 1.42 - not that unreasonable, but with the weather conditions as they were, I had no idea whether I could do this kind of time. Things seemed much quieter than the previous year I had done this race - I guess Covid and the weather have been putting people off - so when the race started at 9am, I did somehow find myself towards the front end of the field, despite positioning myself much further back.

The first thing I noticed was just how icy and cold it was. My feet were sliding in all directions despite wearing my Spikecross, and whilst there wasn't exactly a gale blowing, the chilly wind sure made things feel much colder, and I was continually covering my face with a Buff, only to remove it a few seconds later due to getting too warm.

Pace wise I was doing ok. I wasn't quite hitting the 7.30's, but 7.40 was acceptable and it felt comfortable. I discovered that I was leading the races event - I won't say race as there are no prizes in this particular event - but even so, I was out in the lead and running well. There were a couple of other ladies not too far behind, but I wasn't really too bothered if they passed me - I was chasing my own goal today, not trying to race everybody else, and so far things were going well.

The Hypo Half is a two looped course, and I went through the first lap in around 48 minutes which was well within my target time. But by eight miles, that mental struggle I have with half marathon emerged once again, and I found myself slowing down and taking a couple of walks. I was also frustrated that the other ladies hovering behind me weren't moving in front - it truly felt like they were using me as their pacer and I was putting in all the work. Call me a grump, but I've said many a time that I don't appreciate people doing that - run your own race, not mine, and you might actually find you have a far better performance!

not much else happened from mile 8 to the finish. My hair froze solid, my face was covered in ice, I tried to push through the mental struggle, and I was actually chuffed to bits to finish in 1 hour 44 minutes and 55 seconds - goal achieved :)

Ideally I would like to have ran a little quicker, more to build my confidence going into the marathon rather than anything else, but I really can't complain given the weather conditions. I still ran much quicker than I did a couple of years ago - in fact, it was a almost a good 10 minutes faster - but of course, still well short of my half marathon PR of 1 hour 20 minutes. But at least I can take some positives from the half today, and I also know where I need to focus my energy to make sure I have a good race at the marathon in May.

I don;t have any races now until May - that will be the first of the 5 Peaks trail races, following my the doggy ultra at Blackfoot, so I can focus on getting some pace back in my legs over the coming weeks, and teaching my body to run fast again. I'm actually looking forward to putting in that effort and hopefully seeing improvements over the coming weeks.

I did make a quick video about the half marathon - if you've not already watched, you can find it here.

For now though, happy running folks!