3-5-2023 I ran the 305 Half Marathon on none other than 3-👌🏽-🤚🏽 day! I completed the trifecta on back-to-back years; Three half marathon races in just over a month’s span. It was my 7th half marathon race, 77th half overall and 40th sub 2 hr half. I did not run this one as hard as any of my other races because I wanted to enjoy it, take it all in, not focus entirely on time and test some things out.

Don’t get me wrong, I still ran for time but I wasn’t obsessing. I purposely started off slower than usual (per running gurus) and that was eating me up inside. I was trying to pace myself knowing clearly this is easily the hardest half race course I’ve ran. The first 4-5 miles I was averaging somewhere in the late 8:20s I think, and I was ok with that. I got through the two, massive bridges in Julia Tuttle Causeway pretty efficiently. The mile markers were WAY OFF and that threw me off. One mile was off by like nearly half a mile! Then my Map My Run app froze AGAIN during a race. There was a point that I had no idea where I was at, time-wise.

By miles 6-8 I was teetering in the 8:30s. Once I reached MacArthur Causeway, my legs were feeling heavier. It felt like the bridge was made out of sand. The fact that it was much hotter than anticipated didn’t help. The temperature was in the high 70s but felt like in the 80s with the humidity and no breeze whatsoever. My time kept dipping at that point. Surprisingly, my breathing wasn’t too bad. I think it had to do with the fact I didn’t push the pace too hard in the beginning. This also backfired because now I didn’t have that time cushion I tend to have in my other races.

I finished in my slowest time of all my races (1:56:07), 50 seconds slower than last year but still in the top 23.2% or better than 76.8% of all runners (434 of 1868 runners). Eh, I’ll take it. Now is a much needed rest and break from races but I have a new, long term goal (OBSESSION) on my mind; the New York City Marathon! I did not get chosen for the lottery entry for 2023 but I will try to get in and complete a virtual marathon to guarantee entry for 2024. We’ll see.🤞🏽🗽