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February 24, 2019 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Ran an excellent half-marathon in Split!

I managed to get two good nights of sleep after a very sleep-deprived week and ate a good dinner the night before. I got about about 50 minutes before the race. I was lucky that my hotel was only a half mile from the start line. I stopped in an outdoor market during my warmup to buy a banana and orange. I ate the banana in the starting corral and the orange during the first mile.

The race started off into the wind, which was gusting up to 35mph.I let what felt like dozens of people go by me and kept telling myself that I had never in my life managed to go out too slow in a long race, that even if it didn't feel fast I was doing the right thing. I came through the 5k in 20:32 in 53rd place. This confirmed my worst fears that I was simply not in great shape and would have to really fight on break 90 minutes, not to mention that I'd slipped about 45 paces since the start of the race. But the next mile we turned around headed back into town on a slight downhill with the wind at our backs. Gosh, that wind was simply amazing. I FLEW! There was even one moment I tried taking leap and felt the wind carry me forward. My second 5k was a stunning 18:34, close to my high school 5k PR and by far the biggest negative split I've ever had in a race like this (fitting, given the name of the city I was racing in). We swung through a naval base normally closed to the public and then around the track in a stadium where they played the anthem of a local football club that sounded like a military marching tune as we ran.

Throughout the race I kept telling myself I was doing well and on track for a great race. I didn't worry about my pace, didn't focus too much on the kilometer markers, and paid to heed to pain. In my mind, it wasn't a battle with fear or pain in my mind, but rather a cold analytic calculation of how fast I could go and still have enough energy left to maintain that pace without slowing down till the end. This strategy worked beautifully for me, combined with a constant hunt to reel in and pass runners up ahead which I did with a ferocious abandon in the second-half of the race. My position improved from 53rd at the 5k to 42nd at the finish, which turned out to be 36th for the men, 6th for my age group, and the fastest American.

After the race, I jogged back up the course to cheer on my teammates and run with some of them for their last half mile.