Run Melbourne - RunHalf Marathon

Kept to my pace pretty accurately. Was hoping for a 2:00:00 finish but expected that I'd slow down somewhat in the final 5km so expected to finish slightly beyond the 2hr mark. Had my Garmin set to record every second for accuracy but unfortunately had it set on a 21km workout and it stopped recording at the 20km mark for some reason. At that point I'd averaged 5:38 over the 20km so extrapolating from that gives me the 1:59:02 finishing time.
I expect the official time will be something like 2:04 or something.

Regardless, it's a PB and blows my previous 21km runs out of the water (2:40, 3:18 etc.).

I took my gel at the 6.5km remaining mark, but I can't say it kicked in much at all (or I didn't notice it). It didn't help with the aches in the left leg.

Left leg seized up pretty badly at around the 15km mark and I had to stop twice to stretch it, but even so it was painful to run on and really cramped my form. Need to do some investigation into this and work out how to stop a recurrance.
Aside from that (and a spontaneous nosebleed at the 17km mark) there's not much to improve on other than general fitness and speed. I should have kept doing my core training to help with general form and flexibility.

It might also be a good idea to take a couple of panadol before the run to take any edge off any pain at the last few k's.

Did some leg muscle stretches for 15 minutes, sat around for about 30, then walked 1.5km (uphill) back to the car. Ouch.

Took 2 panadol in the car and was generally ok by the time I got home.

Took a long soak in spa.


left leg really tightened up (ATB?). Calves gave me a few warning signs that they were not happy but they survived the distance.


Weather ended up being perfect for the race; not too cold and didn't get too hot.
A lot of half-marathoners (5000) this year but it was fairly well spaced out/staggered. Course was wide for the most part and little bunching up or slowing down occurred.

Generally it was a really good run.