Shattered records [warning! very boring running minutae involved]

Today was the beginning of my race "season"--the first of the two half-marathons I'm doing this fall. I was planning to take this one, the Toronto Waterfront conservatively. It was supposed to be a fast course, basically flat along lakeshore, but not as fast as the mostly downhill International in October. I didn't get as much sleep as I want, given that I'm not used to getting up at 5:45 am, and was feeling all achy and painy as I made my way to the race start. My goal was to, at minimum, set a personal best (previously 1h 54 min), finish under 1:50 (my realistic target), or break 1:45 (a pace that was theoretically possible). I planned to find the 1:45 bunny and follow him until half way and make a decision to speed up or slow down at that point. However, this was not to be. The 1:45 bunny had decided to start right at the front of the pack and I was stuck somewhere behind him. I raced ahead trying to find him. I eventually caught up at about the 4k mark, but racing ahead meant that I had gone out too fast. I had done the 4 k in about 16 min--a ridiculous 4 min/k pace. I stuck behind the bunny for a couple of kilometers and then realized: I can go faster than this. So I moved on ahead, set my own pace, and finished in about 1:37! I even managed a slightly negative split. For comparison, I ran a couple of 10k's in the spring and my best time was about 47 minutes, in this race my second 10 k split was about 45:30 minutes, directly after running a 46:30 minute 10k.

Anyway, I'm babbling and sore. More babbling and soreness promised three weeks from now for the next race