11.65 kilometers. I stop my watch. The feeling is different. After more than 150 races of all sorts in which I’ve started in more than nine years, for the first time I call off one voluntarily. It is strange. I try to announce my DNF, but can’t find where I should do it. I am walking slowly towards the metro station, to take advantage, at home, of the rest of my Sunday. After a great debatable training from 5th of March, my confidence in a good half-marathon result, meaning at least below 1:30. I am sure I can do even better, so I am preparing the best I can. The race starts at a decent pace, but I feel already the sun striking too much, comparing to hopes and expectations. In the race week, a hole in my left sole provoked a lot of problems, and nervousness for the race day.
A look back on my previous half-marathons
Fortunately, I can properly patch the wound, so that is not a problem anymore. My breathing becomes the problem. After a couple of kilometers at target pace, everything went sideways. 4:22-4:24 / kilometer is not a horrible pace, but a maximum 1:32 final time, outside my goal. Like in the past, the DNF thought torments me. This time is different, having a loop, makes things easier to decide. I am rationale: I know pushing to keep the best pace I can, will bring a good result, but will push my body to lose a lot of energy with no real purpose. Now, remembering some 6-7 years back, when an under 1:40 half-marathon was gold, the fair decision is to push and finish, like always. But is this decision wise?
Nothing good at the end of the tunnel
No, it is not! Each useless effort damages the body at a level where it can go beyond repair. If I want to have a better chance in achieving this kind of objective in the past, I need to be wise. It is not a decision easy to be taken. I am sad, I regret it instantly, because the feeling is that I could do better, actually that I should do better. In reality, I could not, and the 1:32 would have been the best case scenario. I might have suffered for that as well. Or even for a 1:35 half, if the sun was becoming more stubborn. I am upset, but the inside battle is won by the thought it is the right thing to do, at least in a race with low importance for my agenda. I am not saying Legal Half Marathon is to be neglected, but it is not the same like a race in Prague, or Valencia, let’s say.
When hungry for results, you feed on ilusions
I understood in the past very good why sportsmen abandon sometimes. This is the kind of decision you should take, if you want to be fair. “I never abandon! I had hundreds of races”, I’ve seen some written some years back. I didn’t agree then, and I can’t agree more now. Finishing is easy, having an objective is hard. The hardest is to match the objective with the capabilities, and to transpose it from thought to reality. My reality is very different from my expectation, and I need to admit it. Exactly this I am doing. Accept the right defeat, and keep the resources for a further attempt. If this and when will happen, I have no clue. But the weather clearly needs to be on my side. No sun, only clouds. Ideally no rain.
Half-marathon plans for the future
I am exiting the subway, and head for the last meters to my home. It is cold again, the sun hid behind the clouds, I am shacking. I feel much more regret and a mild grief because I’ve exit the race. But I counterbalance it with the same thought mention, that I win back some Sunday time. After all, thinking about the remaining 10 kilometers, I am almost sure the odds of my pace fading to 4:30 / kilometer, and this consolidates my decision. I am sad to let go my first race, but it is a start to a new path I will follow from now on, in this kind of events. Either I have what it takes, or not, I need to dose my effort in a way that matches the passing of time. There is no other way. It is something new, but it might become a habit. Just accepting reality, and maybe having better stories in the near future.
