Retro of a half marathon I ran in Bruges (16Oct2022)

How did it go?

Overall, it went fine; I finished it without any hiccups. As background, I already ran a half marathon in April 2022. And in terms of training, in September, I put in about 85KM of running and 23KM of walking; October - some 20KM of hiking and 50KM of running (excluding the 22KM of the half-m, of course). I was reasonably prepared, and happy with the outcome—this was my personal best compared to the other half marathon. I finished in 2h9min (at an average pace of 6:06/KM).

Now to the details.

What went somewhat wrong

• I broke the Golden Rule of "don't try anything new on the race day" (i.e. no new shoes, no new underwear, no new breakfast, no new nothing!), and paid for it. Mercifully, it was only a small (?) price of annoyance. Here it is. I only trained once with an "isotonic gel" (i.e. it doesn't require sipping water after downing it) during a training run, and that time I took the gel right before the run. The gel is supposed to provide a small dose of carbohydrates as fuel. Now, during the race, I put the gel in my back pocket (which I didn't try out in training). At around 15KM mark, when I reached for it, I felt the goddamned gel was slowly leaking in my back pocket! I managed to fish it out and down the gel, but jeez, my hands were incredibly sticky for the rest of the 5KM. (Plus: the backpocket side of my running shorts was so sticky from the fricking gel-leak that whenever I sat down after the run, I had to forcefully detach my shorts from my skin; urgh!)

  Now, I'm not even sure if the damn gel helped me. I suspect it even slowed me down a bit! (I'm judging this based on my last 5KM pace.) Luckily it wasn't a disaster, but an annoying distraction for about 5 KM. (To be fair on the gel, my body was just not sufficiently used to it. I need to experiment more on how my body reacts to it. Some runners don't gel well with gels.)

  What are you going to do? I swear, I will not the break Golden Rule!

• Lost my pace by more than a minute in the last 5KM of the 22KM run: it was about ~7 min/KM. (The first 10KM were around 5:39 min/KM.) I guess this loss of pace in the last 5KM is expected, as I didn't put in the tempo/interval training.

What went well

• Preparation: "gear check", arranging the backpack for the journey to Bruges the night before made everything smooth.

• Cooking my own "known good meal" the night before, and having it by 6PM. (Capellini pasta with suateed veggies and herbed tofu in olive oil.)

• On race day, waking up 4 hours ahead to have ample time ahead and leave for Bruges (15 min cycling from Ghent + 25 min train to Bruges + 20 min walk to the venue).

• A good night's sleep.

• Taking quick sips of water at water-stations during 10K and 18K mark (I underestimated its value).

• Not trying anything drastically new on race day (modulo the gel fiasco).

• "Running my own race"—i.e. not getting carried away by the pace of faster runners at the beginning, or trying to catch up random people (although, I did catch myself doing this a couple of times.)

• No injuries during the run!

• No trouble caused by the new insoles (by "Superfeet") for my flat left foot. I started using them just one week before the half-m (I know).

What could be improved

• Can do better in reducing the physical suffering of last 5 KMs. Definitely do interval/speed training.

• Pick up core strength training.

• I could've paid closer attention to diet to improve stamina during critical stages of the race.

• I should've gotten the left (flat) foot checked before running the race by a foot specialist ("podiatrist"). As predicted, after the half-m, the familar left-foot pain returned to the point of mild limping for a couple of hours. After a day's rest it was gone.

• Mentally, try not to get distracted (or dispirited) when people take over you, especially in the later stages (after 15KM mark).