The Bogotá Half-Marathon sucks. Same disorganization as always and a 10 am start to make sure you get your nice dehydrating Bogotanian tan. I passed the start line several minutes after the starting gun, and raced like hell during the first 10k or so to try catching up with the 1:45 pacer. I was doing sub 8 minutes per mile pace, something I rarely do in training, which would bite me in the butt later on of course. When I caught the 1:50 guy I told myself, that would be equivalent to the 1:45 one given my late start, so I stuck with him. He did seem a little slow though. But guy next to me told me he was doing the planned split times. I wasn’t using my chrono to avoid stressing myself like in the previous marathon. The delay started to become obvious later on, and some people in the pack started bringing this to his attention. Around kilometer 15 he started pacing up like hell, and I had to let him go.

So three lessons here: don’t trust pacers, don’t trust random guys next to you, just trust your watch.
I’ll have to take it easier and stop stressing so damn much about the numbers. Anyway, my tank was empty already during the last kilometers, and I started alternating walking and running. This is what Jeff Galloway,world-famous “easy going” coach,  preaches for both beginners and advanced runners to make long distances more enjoyable. Some even say this walk/run alternation technique would improve your times too. Even if that’s the case, I feel the race accomplishment is even more remarkable if I’ve been able to do it without stopping to walk. So I ended up a bit disappointed, having no idea how much time I did. The organizers geniuses put two clocks at the end line with different times, so no idea which one meant what.

To my surprise chip times were already published last night, and it turns out I did 1:52, much better than what I thought. But damn, just 1 minute and something above the classification time to get into a seeded starting corral at the Chicago Marathon.

Final thoughts

I’m getting more and more into cycling and swimming and I’m loving it. I’ll be finishing soon a swimming class, and within one or two months of practice I should be able to finish long distances.
I read this at the Zen and the Art of Triathlon, and it rang a bell:

“Train hard when needed, train soft when needed. Do not train moderately hard all the time.”

I think I’m logging too many “moderately hard” miles. I’m gonna be seeking some real triathlon coaching soon, and hopefully will get a better training plan.