Days before the race I wasn’t feeling nerves like I might normally would. It all finally hit me the night before. And it didn’t manifest in the form of an overactive mind. Instead, I barely got any sleep. My body was buzzing with anticipation preventing me from getting into a deep sleep state. By the time I got up, I started piecing all of my gear together.

When I got to the race, I could feel the excitement in the air. After dropping off my bag I hiked over to a hotel lobby which was our designated meeting spot. I started running into a lot of my clinic members. Each one was filled with a personal mix of excitement and nerves. For many of them this was their first half marathon. I was entirely proud of each of them. At one point the whole hotel lobby broke out into cheers. I looked around and there was Fauja Singh and his entourage. Mr. Singh had just turned 100 years old and was planning on running a full marathon. Totally inspirational.

Minutes before gun time we started heading to our corrals. I was in the last corral along with a bunch of other people I knew. We were taking pictures and having a great time. As I looked around I saw some worried faces. I kind of wanted to go up to them and cheer them on but I’m sure some of them would have told me to fuck off. No problem though. I mean, I was there once. I totally get it. And just like that the race started. I think it took me about 11-12 minutes to cross the starting line from where I was. That’s the longest interval between the gun and me crossing the starting line that I’ve encountered so far.

In terms of the race, mine was rather average. I started out slow to get the kinks out. By 5K or so I was feeling good so I started picking up the pace. I was able to maintain things at about 6:00-6:15/km for a good while. I was amazed at just how many more people were around me than when I was running a bit slower farther back. It makes a huge difference. At the rate I was going I was headed to about a 2:17 race. At about 16K, that’s when the fatigue kicked in. I knew it was coming, so instead of panicking I worked things out in my head. I told myself to run slower but pick it up once I’ve worked through it. Somewhere after 16K though there was an aid station that was giving away gels. The ground after that station was entirely sticky. My legs didn’t like that at all. I slowed down by a fair amount through that area, and it took me a while to regain some of my speed. Combined with the fatigue though I don’t think I returned back to where I was. I just couldn’t. I tried, but my body wouldn’t let me. It was at that point that I knew I was facing my usual battle against time slipping away from me.

Every now and then I reminded myself to try pushing again to see if I could get back up to speed. Sometimes I was successful, but slowed back down. By the last kilometre I was doing so many calculations in my head. I was trying to figure out what my likely arrival time would be. I think that’s when I my mind fell briefly into panic mode. The smile went from my face and all I could think was “WTF WTF WTF.” When I saw the sign saying there was 500 metres left. I pushed harder. There’s un underpass in that stretch. In the darkness I felt like I was on drugs. It was a really odd feeling. According to my watch I knew that I could achieve a new personal best if I just kept at it. That was my incentive. Never mind about 2:15, or 2:17: I just wanted to beat my old time of 2:20:19. Just before the finish line I raised my arms in amazement. I did it! I had beaten my old time! I made it in 2:19:46. That’s 33 seconds! It’s not as wide a margin as I wanted, but it’s still a sign of improvement nonetheless. I was so happy.

I was on the verge of tears but I kept it in. My arms and teeth were buzzing. I stuck around the finish chute looking for others from my group. There were some strangers that were in tears or looking worn out. I made it a point to smile at them and congratulate them. They smiled back. I hope I was able to brighten someone’s experience, at least. When I finally ran into someone I knew, the floodgates opened, and I shed a few tears myself. I couldn’t help it. I was just in a weird state at that point. I stuck around longer and saw more and more of the clinic members come in. High fives and hugs were given freely. It was a wonderful time.

Eventually we decided to head over to pick up our bags, which was a terrible experience. The baggage check this year was so poorly organized. It should not take one hour of standing in cold winds to pick up a bag. That was piss poor and must have turned off a lot of people doing this race for the first time, you know? I claimed my prepaid massage and had the guy work on my calves specifically. He was able to find a lot of sore spots. Though…now I kind of wish I got him to focus on my quads and hamstrings. My calves are fine now, but the bigger muscle groups are still sore.

So yeah, that was the STWHM for this year. Generally this race hasn’t been one where I’ve generated personal bests so I’m just amazed I made it out of this one with an improvement. More than anything I’m so happy that so many of my clinic members made it across. They all worked so hard to get that point. It all paid off.