Montreal Oasis Half Marathon 2019: Race Recap

1:46:31 — that’s a half-marathon PB for me!

Still riding the high of yesterday’s race, and I am so proud of this accomplishment. I had been so focused on my upcoming race in October that I didn’t even take the time to strategize for this race. Literally the night before, I was looking at pace charts wondering what to do. Take it easy? Test marathon pace? Give it my all?

I didn’t sleep well, waking up an hour before my alarm went off. I headed off to the start line feeling energized nonetheless. In my training, I had noticed that some of my best runs happened when I pushed through my tiredness. I decided that at the very least I wanted to beat my last half-marathon time of 1:52.

We waited almost an hour to actually start the race, and the first km was slow. Really slow. I reminded myself that was normal since everyone was still finding their pace. Then the second km was slow too. I knew I was capable of more, so I pushed through the third km before checking my pace. A bit fast (oops), but I was feeling good. I decided to stop looking at my watch and just ran what my body wanted me to run.

The last time I ran this race was back in 2011, and I remembered the hills kicking my ass. I ran the whole race this year anticipating that the next turn would be some brutal hill, but was pleasantly surprised almost every time — the climb out of the Olympic stadium was expected but still tough. (As it turns out, marathon training is a great way to prepare for a half!)

I crossed the finish line dripping sweat, completely out of breath, and smiling ear to ear.

One month until the marathon, and while I’m still nervous as hell (I’ll tell you the story of my first marathon another day) l now have a new sense of confidence of what my body is capable of doing. They say that you have to trust your training, so maybe that’s exactly what I need to do.