Hyannis Half Marathon Race Recap

Hyannis was a race I had run last year- it was my I'm back to Half Marathoning Race. This year I registered EARLY- in November. I trained. I felt ready to go. The only part I couldn't control was how the weekend ended up playing out.

I am in a friend's wedding in mid-March and she decided that Saturday was the only time she wanted to have her Bachelorette party. I hosted her at my house Friday night, leading to me being up late and not getting as much sleep as I should have. Then Saturday was the bar crawl. I successfully avoided drinking but it was not where I wanted to be pre race. The Friday and Saturday combo took a lot out of me. I was feeling ready to run- I told my coach I thought I would PR. I got down to the cape just in time to have dinner with the whole crew. The wind was howling and we all joked that we wouldn't be running in the morning if this kept up.

My plan was to run 10-10:15 pace- giving me a finish time around 2:10-2:15. The weather was rough. The wind was kicking my ass along the waterfront areas then I would get hot along the neighborhood areas. I think the HORRIBLE weather the year before lead me to forget how hilly spots of the race were. I tried my best to keep a 10min mile pace knowing it might be tough to hold.

AND IT WAS! I couldn't hold it. I had moments in the race where I went CRAP I am not even going to do better than I did here last year. So as usual I had the goals in tiers:
1- 2:10-2:15 pace
2- new PR
3- beat time here last year
4- prove that I can run a better than 12 min miles half marathon like I did at my half iron
5- finish

Well I knew 5 was totally going to happen. I know 4 was pretty likely. 3 became iffy at times. I just didn't know if I had it for some reason. 2 seemed almost impossible somewhere around mile 10. I gave myself the pep talk. Come on we can finish this. It may not be the 2:10-2:15 you wanted but lets get going- maybe if I can push I can get close!

I crossed the finish at 2:17. This was about a 2min PR. And when I looked it up 11 min faster than last year on the same course. I should be happy. I should see this as a great finish. But I am hung up on the fact that I didn't perform as well as I thought I should. I really thought I had a 2:10-2:15 half marathon in me. To be 100% honest I am not even all that happy that I PR'd. I fell short of what I wanted and thought I was trained for. I know the weather played into my day and I know the previous couple days I had played into it too.

I know I should be happy with a shiny new PR but I continue to give myself a hard time for what I thought could have been on race day. It was great to have so many friends around at the finish. D ran also- he hadn't trained after some injury- his longest run was 7.5mi before the race. He did well! I would kill to have a time like that with little to no training!