Post-Race Euphoria (Or the Toronto Half-Marathon AAR)...

Yesterday was a very good day.

I ran my second half-marathon.

I beat my 2:00:00 goal-time.

I beat my 1:56:34 stretch goal. This stretch goal was derived from the McMillan Running Calculator projection of my half-marathon capabilities, based off my recent 5K personal best time – projections that, I’ve found in the past, have vastly overestimated my capabilities at the longer distances. Not this time.

I even beat my on-the-fly goal. While I was running, I noticed that I was over two-thirds in and still comfortably running well ahead of the pace I needed for even my stretch goal. So I figured I’d gun for 1:55:00.

I finished with a time of 1:54:05.

I utterly annihilated my previous half-marathon time, set when I ran the same race last year in 2:09:41. I bested that by over fifteen minutes. Last year, I felt like I wanted to die during the final stretches of the run. This year, I was able to accelerate over the course of the last kilometre and end in a full sprint. I crossed the finish line with, quite possibly, the most intense runner’s high I’ve ever felt. I was high-fiving fellow finishers. I hugged Miss Toronto Tourism, who was greeting finishers in the exit chute. I was euphoric.

It was a good day for a lot of other people too:

Sylwia was running her first half-marathon and had a soft target of finishing under two hours. She finished with a time of 1:46:57. Rob ran his first full marathon and beat his goal-time of 3:45:00, finishing in 3:42:16. Laura was running in her second half-marathon, and her second in three weeks. She was trying to expunge the disappointment of her last effort, when her attempt at a sub-two-hour half-marathon was derailed by a seven-minute porta-potty break. She came into yesterday’s race with a stretch goal of 1:50:00. She finished in 1:47:40. Laura’s two friends had been training like crazy over the last half-year to qualify for the Boston Marathon. They both needed to run the full marathon in under 3:20:59. Tony and Rick finished with times of 3:19:03 and 3:13:19 respectively.

It was a great day for a run.

The race started about a half-hour after sunrise, with the temperature hovering around 2°C. The forecast called for sunny weather, warming to 7 or 8°C in the following two hours.

I lined up behind the start line, somewhere between the 1:45 and 2:00 pace runners. There seemed to be a lot more people running this year and we were jammed in like crazy in the starting corrals, though it might have been less about the number of runners and more that the cold was causing everybody to huddle together like sheep in a snowstorm. I was wearing a ratty long-sleeved t-shirt over my running gear, but I was already starting to warm up, so I figured I’d save time by removing my over shirt at that point, rather than fumbling with it while running. I just had to be really careful not to elbow somebody in the face while doing it.

I crossed the start line a little over a minute after the gun went off. I started off running beside Laura, who was running with a pace band for a 1:50:00 finish. I kept within five metres of her for the first four kilometres, but lost her somewhere up the hill at York Mills. I didn’t have a pace band. I was running the first five kilometres based purely on maintaining a heart-rate of 175. I allowed it to rise to 185 ascending the York Mills hill but I still felt like I was running comfortably. The 5K marker at the top of the hill was my first gauge as to my pace and possible finish times. I knew I needed to be below 0:28:20 to reasonably make my 2:00:00 goal time. I crossed the marker at 0:26:50.

After that, I relied on mental calculations to judge my pacing. At each kilometre marker, I checked my watch and added 0:05:30 to reach my target for the next marker. I kept running at a pace that felt comfortable and that kept my heart rate between 170 and 180. My watch checks at the next two kilometre markers showed that I was actually running around a 0:05:20/K pace. I was slightly concerned that I was running too quickly, but having that time in the bank meant that I wasn’t worried in the slightest when I had to pull off the road a little past the 8K mark for a one-minute-long pit stop at a road-side porta-potty. As it turned out, I’d hydrated a little too much that morning.

Free from the uncomfortable pressure on my bladder, I came out and breezed through the next two kilometres at a 0:05:00/K pace before slowing back down to 0:05:10/K for the subsequent two. That was despite slowing to a walk for ten seconds at the 10K water station to get a cup of Gatorade into my mouth. My time at the halfway point was 0:56:25. Once I passed the 12K marker, heading downhill along Rosedale Valley Road, I spent the next kilometre doing calculations in my head. If I could keep up my current pace, I was in line for a 1:53:15 finish. As it turned out, I was slowing down. When I passed the 13K marker, I checked my watch. I’d run the last kilometre at a 0:05:30/K pace.

I blithely thought my slowdown might have been due to the mental I was wasting doing math, but even at a 0:05:30/K pace for the rest of the run, I was still way ahead of my goal times. My more legitimate concern was that I was slowing down due to lagging energy levels. I put those thoughts out of my mind for the next kilometre. That kilometre, through the tree-lined Rosedale Valley, was the most zen-like period of the entire run. I shut down my brain and just enjoyed. The trees were showing full fall colours; the road was in shade and sloping downhill; the sun was peeking through all the yellows, oranges and reds, scattering the light; and the air was misty with all the puffs of breath condensate from the runners in front of me. I finished the kilometre in 0:05:30.

Making the turn onto Bayview, I looked ahead to the short hill ahead. Having run the course the year before, it wasn’t unexpected, and I just had to power through it. I heard a load moan from a girl running just behind me – obviously, she'd never run the course. I maintained the 0:05:30/K pace through the hill and the next kilometre, but I was definitely starting to tire. My heart-rate was up to 183. I had two energy gels sequestered in the back-pocket of my running shorts and I made the decision to take one at the next water station. I stopped for twenty seconds, just enough to squeeze the gel into my mouth, and wash it down with two cups of water.

I started up again, but had slowed down to a 0:05:40/K pace. Just past the 16K marker, a man had brought out his two little girls to cheer the runners on. They were offering high-fives for luck. I made sure to get any luck I could get. I clocked in at 1:26:00 at that point and, after getting my luck, worked out that if I just ran the last 5K in twenty-nine minutes, I could finish with a time of 1:55:00. I knew at that point I was going to make my original goal time, and my stretch goal, short of suffering some kind of catastrophic injury. So I resolved to gun for 1:55:00.

I stopped off for another ten seconds at the water station past the 18K marker, for my last cup of Gatorade. Five-hundred metres later, I made my turn onto University Avenue, and found myself facing that kilometre-and-a-half, uphill stretch towards Queen’s Park Circle. This was the toughest stretch more me. I passed the 19K marker running at a 0:05:50/k pace – a pace slightly below that which I needed for a 1:55:00 finish. All I could think about was how I’d broken down during this exact stretch the previous year – how I’d whipped Andrea during every single training run before the race and then, having run the previous nineteen kilometres together, had to watch her soldier on while I slowed down to a walk for the entire twentieth kilometre. It was more a mental slog than a physical one, but my legs were starting to feel like lead. I just kept running, maintaining that 0:05:50/K pace through the 20K marker.

Once I turned onto Queen’s Park Circle, I hit the crowds of spectators cheering the runners onto the finish. I hit the music and the road-side bands. I could see the food and massage tents. I could see runners that had finished ahead of me, wrapped in reflective blankets, with finishers’ medals around their necks. I engaged my final reserves. And I accelerated through the entire twenty-first kilometre, somehow managing to cover the distance in 0:04:45. With a hundred metres to go, I still had enough left to break into a full sprint, weaving past fifteen or so runners to the finish line.

You know the rest.

It was a glorious feeling: an endorphin soaked runner's high wrapped around a complete validation of my training routine. Knowing that the all time I spent pounding kilometre after kilometre of pavement, sprinting up all the hills, and running in the heat and in the dark was totally worth it.

A month ago, the idea of going out and running a two-hour half-marathon scared the living crap out of me. I thought you’d have to put a gun to my head to run anything over 20K again after the race. Now, to have to go out and run 21K in only two hours seems like just another run in the park. Obviously, perceptions are weird and ever-changing things.

I’ll definitely be running the distance again – I’m sure another half-marathon will be on my schedule sometime in the future.

Maybe even as part of half-Ironman attempt.

(That’s probably just the euphoria talking.)