I Just Ran My First Sub-1:35 Half Marathon Since 2015
Here’s what and how it happened
I started seriously training for races in 2011. Leading up to 2016, I ran a number of personal bests, including a 1:28 half marathon in 2015.
Unfortunately, my personal best streak ended in 2016. I got a knee injury and I was facing other setbacks as well. Life had definitely punched me in the face in early 2016. I had to be off running for a few months due to the injury.
As a result, my motivation to keep training disappeared and, for a brief moment, I fell out of love with running. Honestly, I was a bit overwhelmed by how much work I had to do to get back to where I left off. To say that the injury was demoralizing was an understatement.
I didn’t even think I would be running again.
Between 2017 and 2019, I did a number of different races but my results were not too great. At that point, I began to wonder if I will ever be able to run as fast (or nearly as fast) as I did before. I also hadn’t done any speedwork since 2016 because I feared that my knee wouldn’t be able to handle it and I was upset that I could no longer hit the paces I used to hit.
Then, in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic started. All my races got canceled and I no longer felt the pressure to run fast. With…
