2014 Seattle half marathon race report

2014 Seattle half marathon race report

This year is my 10th anniversary for half marathon, it all started 10 years ago from a dare with Stephen Wong, and now I'm helpless and became an addict, the good type.

How aim gonna celebrate?  I was gonna run it again and PR it!

My previous PR was last year at Portland Rock 'n' Roll half marathon, finished at 1:49:15 at 8:19 pace. 

Today, I haven't checked the official time yet, the watch says 8:17 pace for 13.23 miles, I was going about 2 second faster which comes does to about 30 second PR, it's not much, but I'll take it.

Had a good night of sleep last night, woke up, got changed and ate breakfast. I exited the freeway at 6:45 and thought I had a lot of time because the race started at 7:30, I was wrong! South lake union was a mess, by the time I got close to the start line and parked the car, I had about 10 minutes spare. I parked about 5 blocks away so I ran over as the warmup and the run was about to start.

Heart rate was crazy as normal, so I didn't even bother to look at it; in fact, I totally ignored HR today, it was a distraction to me in previous races.

After the start, I was looking at the watch and it didn't look right, was messing with the watch because it wasn't set to running mode.

Pacing wasn't consistent, I was going anywhere between 9 something to sub 8. I was happy that the fastest 3 miles or so happened at the end, the fact that I struggled so much about pacing and mental game before, I need to pad myself on the back for the negative split today.

Mental game was good as mentioned above, the last 1/3 started to struggle and wanted to slow down so many times, but I didn't for a single time, I even dragged myself up all the hills.

When I turned into the stadium and couldn't sprint anymore, I think I did a good job throughout the run and squeeze everything out of myself.

The last 3 miles or so was sub 8.

Very satisfied with the result, especially the condition was way worse than Portland. It was low 20s in the morning, my hands started to hurt a bit at the beginning, then they get really painful and eventually I didn't feel them anymore. Also, the Gatorade at the water stations had ice in them, and the GU jel was more like toffee candy than jel. There was ice throughout the course, it's good that the sun was out. Very nice running weather despite of the freezing cold temperature.

I'm very excited about the next race and next year, I know that my training is paying off! Yeah!!

Thanks for reading