Here's how it went down: Race expo day went fine. No trouble finding the venue. No rush at the counters, picked my bib and race kit well in time and had a pretty much relaxed pre-race afternoon. Towards evening, I started feeling a migraine set in. (Uggh! for me these are the worst. When I get a full blown one, all I can think of is carving out the top right corner of my head and tossing it out! Too graphic huh?) I took a random headache pill, had my basic comfort meal of curds and rice and hit the bed at 8:00 p.m.
Maybe it was the Universe's way of telling me not to push it, but come race morning, I forgot my Garmin! I had left it charging in the corner and forgot all about it as I left in the morning for the race venue. I was half-way to the venue by the time I realized that my watch was missing, and it was too late to go back for it. For non-runners this may not seem like a big deal, but it is. It is a BIG deal!! All my pace plans had to be thrown out the window because without my little watch telling me how fast I was going, I had no way to knowing if I was going at 6'00", 6'30" or 7'00"... Aaargh!! Anyways, I decided not to let it ruin my race and figured I'd just run it. Enjoy the race and just run.
And indeed, it was the strangest (but extremely freeing) experience to run without the watch. All throughout the race I had no notion of my pace, or the time that had elapsed. There were around 4 mile markers on the route but other than that I only had a vague estimate of the distance I had covered. There was no way of knowing if I should speed it up or rein it in. I just had to keep running. The weather was definitely much better than what I was used to in training. But given the late start of the run (6:45 am) it became too sunny too quickly and the bright sunshine was a little uncomfortable. The route was pretty (especially the parts that snaked through Cubbon Park) but there were lots of gradual inclines and lots of U-turns which tended to slow you down. And there were lots of runners!!! It was by far the most crowded half marathon that I have done. I couldn't find my rhythm till about half way in and the crowd had thinned a bit. At the start, had I heard them announce that it was a crowd of 7000+ runners. But I believe there were only 3669 finishers (and of them just 584 were women)
It was a good, strong run. I didn't feel fatigued and I didn't feel myself fading (even towards the end) and just as I was getting to the point where I was wishing it was over, I had reached the 20.5K timing mat. I had noted the time on that giant LED timer as I crossed the start line. It was around 00:01:30... And as I turned into the stadium for that last 100 meters to the finish line, I saw it was at 02:17:something. PB!! :) :) By some miracle, PB. I don't know how, but PB. :) The official timing was 2:16:38. (PB by 3 minutes and 10 seconds)
Maybe if I had had my Garmin I might have pushed a little harder for that 2:15 goal. I'll never know. But here's to going for it another day.
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