How I Took 22 Minutes Off My Half Marathon Time
At least, this is how I think I did it
I was shocked when I crossed the 10K mark. I triple checked I wasn’t making some sort of mistake. My trusted timepiece agreed with the digital clock in the street, so I embraced the truth I was moving that fast. It had been eight months since my last half marathon and now I was indulged in a fantasy about beating that race’s time by half an hour.
Let me first clarify my interpretation of speed. That race from eight months previous was my first half marathon. As a newbie running on a freezing, rain-filled mid-March morning, I managed to haul myself from start to end in 2:31.51. An average pace of 11:35 minutes spent enjoying each mile. I was pretty pleased with myself that day, for I had missed my goal time by only a pair of minutes. I felt doubly proud as the run took place in a torrential nor'easter storm that brought enough rain and wind to turn the 9,000 scheduled runners into 6,000 at the line. It still stands, now four years past, as the worst conditions I’ve ever experienced in a race.
And then, on a freezing November morning that same year, I crossed the line in my second half marathon with a chip time of 2:09:25. An average pace of 9:53 for each of those thirteen miles. Twenty-two minutes and twenty-six seconds had been removed from my newbie half. I had somehow…
