My Near Half-Marathon PR

The S.I. Half Marathon, where I was joined by 19 other fellow Jrunners, davened shachris together before the race, had a continental breakfast after, and in between, I narrowly missed breaking my half-marathon PR by 34 seconds, but I could not push it any further. I gave it all the energy I had. It was my 15th half.

And I know where those 34 seconds went. I needed to do exactly 8 minute miles from wire to wire to break my PR. For the first seven miles, my times were all between 7:36 and 8:01, but then came THE HILL, and the mile portion of that stretch took me 8:45, then I needed to spend some time at the next water stop to recover. By the time I got my senses back, I had lost too much time for continued 8s to get me my PR. That hill wrecked me. But I have no complaints, none. My PR is 9 years old and to come within a whisper of my PR is extremely satisfactory.

Now the general convention holds that to determine your marathon time, take your last 1/2 marathon distance, multiply by two, add ten minutes, and badabing! By that rationale, I should obliterate my PR (4:24) and finally eclipse the goal I set for myself when I ran my first marathon sometime in the last millenium: 4:20. But I should do soooooo much better than that! I will.