More musings on the half marathon

I must still be basking in the afterglow of yesterday's race, because I had a hard time reeling it in for today's easy run, doing it about 15 seconds per mile faster than I should have.  But while I was out doing my easy 4.5 miles, I thought about some of the things that I started doing that probably helped with yesterday's race, things that I definitely should have been doing all along, and most certainly should have been doing prior to the marathon in Phoenix.

Hills.  I started running the lower loop at the Highland Park Reservoir, rather than the upper one.  I started doing this after last month's horrendous half marathon, and I really think that it helped a lot.  I powered through the hills yesterday, unphased, because none of them actually seemed all that bad.  "I've run that hill before," I thought as I came up to them, and then I smoked them.  I think doing the hills also helped me to learn how to run downhill better and just let go on the hills.  I think I made up a lot of time on the downhills, something I was too tired to do during the last half marathon, thanks to starting out too quickly.

Speed and pace.  I was conscious to run at a MUCH slower pace than usual this past week, and to not do very high mileage, and though I was worried that it would hurt me in the end, especially since I haven't done a long run in a few weeks, thanks to being sick, it seemed to really help.  I was nice and fresh and not exhausted for the race.  I'll definitely be sticking with the slower easy pace and adding in some speed work to try to get me going even faster at races.  I definitely have the potential to be running faster than I am, at least in races.

Taper.  I had planned to taper, really.  But the length of the taper was kind of accidental, since I had only planned to taper for a week before the race, and I ended up tapering for 3 weeks because I had to take a whole week off because I was sick.  But I felt great once I started running after that week (even though I was irrationally worried that I wouldn't be able to run at all and would totally lose all my strength and all after a week off).

So all these things together, plus the absolutely perfect long race weather, led to this being not only my best half marathon time, but really, probably the best race I've ever run, in terms of how I felt the whole time, my mental state, etc.  It was the polar opposite of the marathon in January, where it was hard and unpleasant from the very beginning.  This one was great the whole time, just really fabulous.  I haven't even found the right word for how good this race has made me feel.  Truly, it'll be a hard one to top.