Visualization

That's an important tool, visualisation. You gotta picture how your race is going to pan out and then it's more likely to happen. Friday night I had a sore throat and my ankle wasn't working again. Don't know what's up with my ankle. Sometimes I can't put any weight on it and then after a while it goes okay. So Saturday I was visualizing the half marathon. I saw myself stopping and limping after 50 metres and then getting booed. I thought about not going. I'd wanted to try and run sub 1 hour 20 minutes. I've run more than 9 and half miles only once in the last few months but still thought it was possible.

My cold didn't get any worse, just a sore throat and throughout the day my ankle stopped hurting but I didn't run on Saturday and that night as I was deciding what shorts to wear I did more visualization. I pictured the first mile, I'd be fine in that mile and the second mile. I didn't bother visualizing the middle bit of the race because it goes on a bit but I could picture the last two or three miles. I could picture people catching me and running past me and disappearing into the distance. That's what always happens. I'm used to it.

Sunday morning was chilly. I could still feel my ankle and had sticky snot so I took two Day Nurse tablets with my turkey thigh mince and eggs. I initially wore a base-layer but walking to the car I decided it wasn't that cold and came back and got changed and then went down to the start at the FB Fields. 

I decided to wear gloves as gloves and a running vest look pro as fuck. I wore my Saucony ProGrid Type A5s, those weird shorts and my favourite yellow Adidas vest. And a cap.

The race started and I felt pretty good actually. I was with the fast guys for the first mile. And the the second. I was the only one with the fast guys at the end of the second mile which was all uphill and I was thinking that I must take Day Nurse before all races. Then the three leaders started to pull away but I didn't fall apart, I felt I was running pretty good. I couldn't hear anybody clapping for people behind me so I knew I had a bit of a gap. And this went on for the next 8 miles. At about ten miles I'd expected everybody to run past me. I'd visualized it. And then I heard the footsteps and a woman ran past me at about 100mph. I wanted to stop and walk just then but I thought, fuck it. And carried on running. I was still feeling okay. I was going as fast as I could. The woman was going much faster but I wasn't walking and then I was back at the FB Fields. There was a lap of the running track to finish. In the last 100 metres some other guy came running past me. That was annoying. What's the point of sprinting for 5th? And then I'd finished and looked at my watch. 1hr20 and 4 seconds. That was more annoying. I could probably have run four seconds quicker had I looked at my watch.

Cold's worse today but at least that Half Marathon is out of the way and the next races are all 5-10ks. I fucking love 10ks. Don't like Half Marathons.