In which I run a half marathon PR

1.
Monday, 4:45pm
Eight around Lake Minneola

2.
Tuesday, 4:15pm
Seven and a bit

3.
Wednesday, 5:30pm
Six

4.
Thursday, 4:15pm
Three and a half easy

5.
Saturday, 7:00am
On Saturday, I ran the OUC Half Marathon. I got there a little later than I usually like to arrive at a race, but I did that deliberately since it was in the 40s and the OUC doesn't offer bag check. Fortunately, I was able to stand inside the Panera near the start until just before the start. I lined up midway between the 8-minute and 9-minute mark--this turned out to be a mistake, both because I ran close to 8-minutes and because lots of people lined up too close to the front. So during the first mile, things were pretty bogged down. Somewhere around the quarter-mile point, somebody kicked me in the right knee--unintentionally, of course, but it was pretty tight, and I was trying to pass when this guy brought his foot really far back and caught me in the knee cap. I felt pretty warmed up after the first couple of miles, and things felt good, running easy, and after the five-mile mark, things felt even better, and I was running sub-8.

Around mile eight, a woman yelled at the group of us, "Piece of cake." I pretty much wanted to strangle her.

I hit a bit of a crisis around mile eleven. My blood sugar crashed, and my core temperature felt like it started to drop. I started feeling nauseous, started wondering about my ability to finish. In hind sight, I should have grabbed some Gatorade around mile seven, because after I drank a little at the aid station at mile twelve, I felt better almost immediately.

Overall, I ran 1:45:56, an average pace of 8:06, which is far better than my last time at the OUC in 2008 (2:05, 9:33 average) and better than my goal for this race (1:51, 8:30 average).

6.
Sunday, 10:00am
Recovery run of Two and a half, and the first half-mile really hurt.

Total miles this week: 40.7