So…the morning of my first HM has come and gone. Throughout the entire race, my thoughts progressed from “I just want a sub-3 h” to “3.5 hours is okay too” to to “you know what, I don’t care if I exceed four hours, I just want to go home”. The cutoff time was 4 hours, and I finished at 3 hours 59 minutes (lmao). According to Garmin Connect, I ran 59 minutes and walked 2 h 59 minutes and the total distance was 21.42km (maybe the additional distance was me weaving?). Here’s how things went:
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Pre-Race & Accessories:
– The night before, I packed my vest with:
+ plain water in one bladder (500ml)
+ isotonic drinks in the other bladder (500ml)
+ four SiS energy gels (I had 3 flavours. I thought of throwing in another flavour, but ultimately decided not to mess around too much with my tummy)
+ phone in zippered pocket
– I wore my Garmin Forerunner. It’s been my faithful running companion over the years and crossed various milestones with me – my first 5k, first 10k, and now first HM. You could say I’m pretty attached to it. I never run without it because:
+ It alerts me every time my heart rate goes over a certain zone, which is generally a cue I take to coast to a walk. Sometimes my ego gets the better of me, so it’s important to pay attention. My hubris almost ended me the one time I tried to keep up with the PR or ER gang and didn’t notice my bpm was over 200 bpm.
+ It has haptic & sound alerts for walk/run intervals. I Galloway all my runs, so the interval alerts help to keep my pace structured. Just set the intervals, run when the watch says run, and walk when it says walk. No counting on fingers or checking my watch every 30 seconds needed. (During the HM I didn’t strictly adhere to the intervals, but TBF it was an unprecedented distance and I was completely gassed)
– I started carb-loading 3 days before the event. The day before the run, I ate pastas (yes, plural…Through the lens of retrospective wisdom I see now that it wasn’t such a good idea).
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Things that helped:
- I slathered generous amounts of vaseline on the back of my thighs before starting. No chafing, not even by the end of the race. It was a last minute tip I picked up from running reddit. In my sleep-deprived state, I entertained the worrying thought that it would make my pants slip off halfway, but that would be silly now, wouldn’t it?
- I ate 3 gels, one at the 30 min mark, one at 45 mins, and the third one maybe an hour after that. Maybe that’s the only reason I didn’t pass out despite months of cardiovascular deconditioning.
- My hydration vest. The water stations weren’t enough because there wasn’t really any left over for the back of the pack. I’m not a fan of how it feels to keep going with no way of knowing how long it would be before seeing the next water station. I wish I had done more training runs with the vest to a) get used to the additional load and b) figure out how to pace my drinking so that I don’t run out of water at the worst possible time.
Where I messed up:
- I didn’t train enough. Prior to this, my longest distance was 12k. I genuinely didn’t have the energy to do long runs approaching 16k or more on Sundays (yeah, I know it’s still on me).
Unsurprisingly though, cardio was the limiting factor in the first few Kms – after that, it was my feet that were the problem. My thighs and calves were fine the entire time while out on the road, but my feet were in agony and I started limp-walking after Km 12. All the other walkers continued to pass me until they disappeared from sight. - Not using enough sunscreen. I didn’t slap on nearly enough and I didn’t put any on my face. Being baked in the sun made things even more uncomfortable than they already were. My face still feels tender from the sunburn. I also started shivering and getting chills as it was getting really hot during the last few Kms with the sun beating down on me. Obviously, that’s not good. I don’t think it was from losing too much sodium because I took all my gels and drank a lot of isotonic drinks, so I’m thinking it was some sort of heat exhaustion. Even after I got home, I was still cold and chilly for the rest of the day. Going back to mistake #1, if I had trained more, I wouldn’t have taken so long running and spent so much time under the hot sun.
- Sleeping only 2 hours the night before a morning race because my anxiety kept me awake.
After getting home, I got in bed and slept for 2 hours straight with my hair still wet from the shower, then ate lunch, and then brought my bunnies to the vet for their scheduled checkup in the afternoon. Bunbun got mad about it and flipped the bowl of apple & hay treats we put inside the carrier with them.
Below: them in their carrier (before someone unceremoniously tossed the bowl)
I’m still limping everywhere I go (thank god for my soft bunny slippers), and I still feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. I’ve been feeling feverish, lethargic, and weak (not just physically but mentally as well). My mom is so nice, she bought me a little slice of mango cake from my favourite bakery afterwards. Then, after the vet trip, I continued lying in bed/sleeping well until bedtime.
Laying in bed I thought about how someone a few feet ahead of me had ducked out of the route to detour to a convenience shop, buy some snacks, rejoin the race behind me, overtake me, and then finish 20 minutes earlier, like the punchline to some kind of joke. Just how slow was I going that they out-walked me to the point I was basically on my own in the last few Kms? I guessed the shoe inserts I slipped inside my shoes to support my low foot arch were more of a liability than a help; they were probably the reason my feet hurt so much and made my shoes heavier than I was prepared for. I think they provide relief for shorter distances like when travelling or walking around huge malls and the like, but definitely not for anything more than a few km.
But, with all that said, at least I made it under the cutoff time, even if you have to scroll down to the bottom of the results page to find my name. January 2025 me wouldn’t have believed that August 2025 me would sign up for, and finish, a half. I got to simultaneously achieve 3 PBs in one day (fastest 5K, first HM time, and longest run). Plus, I finally get to tell people I did a half marathon! The agony will pass, but bragging rights are forever (just as long as nobody asks me what my time was).