twenty one point one: Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon Recap

So here it is: 1:49:26.

I barely slept the night before. The starting line was freezing. My blood sugar was 7.0. I snuck into the blue corral (1:45-1:59 finishers) and lined up behind a guy with a giant Foo Fighters tattoo on the back of his calf. It took me four minutes to cross the starting mat. I snaked past people for the first few kilometres (how'd they get all the way up here?) and tried to ignore the fact that I was dying to pee. I hit 5k in exactly 26 minutes--exactly on target. I hit a really good rhythm. The pee just disappeared, I guess?

I spotted Christie Blatchford clapping in a small group of spectators along the Lakeshore. Her heart didn't really seem into it, though--maybe the spectacle was too public for her.

I made sure to stay ahead of the 3:45 marathon pacer. I hit 10k in 52 minutes flat. No shit. I drank all the Gatorade. My shin splints, which had been bothering me for weeks, never showed up for the party. My IT band, though--dormant for four months!--decided to tighten up near 16k. I ran through it. My splits were frighteningly consistent (I guess all those Yasso 800s paid off). The 1:50 pacer caught up to me with a kilometre to go and I pushed hard to stay ahead of him.

I got the sub 1:50. And when I checked my blood sugar on the curb after the race? 7.0. (Okay, there may have been some crazy post-race high sugars but those don't count! It's the 1:49 that counts.)

Phew.