Oak Bay Half

Having found myself in Victoria this weekend, I decided to jump into the Oak Bay Half Marathon. With the Scotiabank Half Marathon only a month or so away, I knew I needed some longer race efforts to help prepare me for it. I have been running well of late, with last week's VFAC workout being another strong workout over shorter distances (2 x 1 mile 7/8 = 9:21, 9:30), but my longest tempo since December has been 30 minutes. It was with this in mind that I decided to try out the Oak Bay Half.

I ran well for about 14k, trying to be conservative and slowly working my way up through the field, but the lack of endurance fitness became very apparent when in 3 short kilometers I went from 3:35/km pace to 4:20/km pace. The rest of the race was about getting home. A very humbling and all together unspectacular 1:21 for the half, my slowest time since my first half-marathon over 5 years ago. This has definitely shown me that the speed I am carrying is not an easy cross-over to the longer stuff, but I will be looking at building the duration of my tempo runs over the next few weeks. I am not sure how Scotiabank will go, but at least this kick in the pants will keep me honest in my training.