Notes
Garry Bjoklund Half Marathon 2019, 11th place, 1:04:52. Could not get any better weather! 50 degrees at the gun and only a DP of 48 with a 6-8 mph tailwind the whole way. When the stampede started I found myself right on the shoulder of the leaders and tucked right in, and within a half mile drifted off the back of the pack. I wasnt too concerned, though I tried to count the bodies in the pack I knew I would be picking a bunch of them off later in the race if I kept my wits about me. I conciously supressed the urge to check my watch, I told myself that I would gage how I was doing at 10k (roughly halfway) and 10 Miles (ready for a close). I soon found myself heading a meager chase pack along with a fella named Chris May. I will be upfront in sayign that May made the race for me. He was assertive and kept the pace honest. I would drift off of him every now and then but the pair of us seemed to be the only ones taking bodies in the second half of the race. I was only passed by one person after 5 miles (Chris). I worked on keying in on the effort I was exerting, more than the percieved pace I was running. I rode along the red line pretty much from 5k on. Came through 10k just off of May in 30:51. Figured 31:30 would have been good so that was a nice boost. The following 2 miles were the absolute worst though. I was startign to feelmy legs deaden and get heavy as we climbed up to the 8 mile mark before mercifully falling down a 1000m decline, then right back up again over an overpass. I wanted to see sub-50 on the 10 mile clock and had some peoiple to chase between the overpass and that point. I glanced over to see 49:42 and I knew it was going to be a PR day. I reinforced to myself, however, that i needed to be a competitor so all the while I was passing a couple more guys I was focusing on reeling in May. He had roughly 50 meters on me as we entered to last mile. the little voice in my head said, you need to go get him, you got to be close to the money (top 10) and you'll be really disappointed if you just miss it because you werent aggressive enough. Over the last half mile I pushed and pushed, running as fluidly as I could and surprisingly there was still life in my legs. I was running out of space, but no doubt I was getting up to May's shoulder. we enetered the last 200m nearly stride for stride. I went for the kill in one big push but he responded immediately and promptly put me in the ground for a 3 sec margin. Despite the narrow lose, I am estatic at my effort today considering the shoddy training of the past 5 weeks or so. I got myself in a really good place mentally and came in with the apporach of: I don't know what I got in the tank for this race, but I am going to give it whatever I have and as long as I can look in the mirror and say I fought, and ran as hard as I could, I woul dbe satisfied. I did just that.