The story of my 10th Shamrock Half — far and away my slowest ever — isn’t really one of failure or misery or sadness. It’s a huge combination of things.
First off…
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This is my first half marathon in my 40s. I’ve had so many injuries along with COVID disruptions, so I do have a feeling of being happy with just finishing.
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Speaking of COVID disruptions, this race was from my 2020 entry.
Now on to some lessons learned and other thoughts:
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It’s a major, major eye-opener that just because I’m back to my longest runs in a couple of years, speed for any kind of distance isn’t going to magically appear. It kind of did for nearly 6 miles. I was thinking I could get about 2 hours with the right push. I was hanging pretty well with the 2-hour pace group too, but I couldn’t keep it up.
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I realized that I need more races to practice race pacing for this specific event. Shamrock 2023 (yes, I’ve already signed up for it) is 361 days away. In addition to better training (track time, soon!), I need more racing experience. I will not be satisfied with simply covering the distance or being happy that I finished. 40 minutes slower than my fastest half ever is not what I settle on … not yet, anyway.
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I need more sleep. I don’t know how that happens, but I had a major feeling of exhaustion in the second half of the race. After the race, while hanging out with my family and sister (who set her course record today!), I couldn’t even finish a celebratory beer. I didn’t feel good at all and really wanted to nap.
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I’ve got to get my allergies under control early in the season or switch meds. These past few days, I’ve more or less lost my voice and also have lingering sinus issues. The lack of being able to breathe well out of my nose bothered me just as much mentally as it did physically.
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If I’m going to get faster, I need to lose weight. I’ve actually lost weight since I ran the Richmond 8K in the fall and the Surf ‘n’ Santa 5 Miler in December, but I’m still about 10 pounds off what I want to be. As I get older, those extra pounds really weigh me down.
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I need new shoes for my long runs.
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I need to stay at a hotel closer to the start line. I was nearly 2 miles away.
I don’t know what my goals are with this race or for anything in the immediate future, but those are things I need to work on soon. Since I hit a really low point back in August (right after “quitting” on this blog), I’ve had a goal of “run more this month than the previous month.”
It’s actually worked really well to ease back into higher mileage. Getting to beyond 13 miles hasn’t felt like hard work – it’s felt very natural in my progression. This Shamrock Half wasn’t demoralizing at all when it comes to wanting to continue that streak this month or to stop at this distance —but just running this distance isn’t necessarily a “win” to me either.
I could ramble on and on about what I need to do or what I know I need to do, but this isn’t the space for me to do that. This is the point to return to internalizing those next steps and then quietly get to work. Feel free to follow along with me on Instagram on SOME of those things
Real David H. 
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