Greenbelt Half Marathon

After opening my mouth a few weeks ago at one of the ARC Wednesday night sessions and saying that I "might" race the Greenbelt Half, and then backing that up with a few more statements the following Wednesday at ARC, I figured I should sign up. So a day before registration cutoff I signed up. Impromptu half marathon. I was pretty excited though as I've been running some long Kms and had no expectations so it was just going to be a fun run. I obviously hoped for a sub 1hr30min time, but if not I wasn't going to cry

By race day, Sam has signed me up for a 1hr24min race through a coaching app that I am testing, so game on! This little spark set me a new goal. If I raced this it would be a PB. I woke to a beautiful day. Crystal clear blue skies. No wind. Amazing autumn day, perfect day for a run.

The race started at 8am at Athlestone Primary School and headed to the river Torrens and then down the Linear Park trail and into the city. Sam and I had previously discussed our goal pace, and in the end we ran together, talking endlessly about events and training. We stuck to our goal pace and time flew by.

With 5 or so kms to go we managed to open up as we had preserved the legs by not going out too hard and shaved a few more secs off our avg pace. We finished with 1:24:44, Sam crossing the line about a meter ahead of me. I can't remember my old half marathon PB, but I think this shaved off about 3mins. I was super stoked to have set a PB in a race that I wasn't planning on running until 4 days ago. A good re introduction to speed work and a good basis to my Marathon training.

The rest of the ARC killed it, with PBs all around! We backed up a solid race effort with brunch at "The Deli" with the whole crew! Amazing eggs! It's been really great running with the ARC again and meeting a lot of great like minded people. The group is so cool and Kate and I have really found that we are getting pushed, but also making some great new friends!

Till next time, happy running!