Half Marathon PR

March 29, 2026 – I ran a half trail marathon near my house; it’s not my usual race. I was 12 years into running marathons and ultras before I ran my first half marathon in 2020, so I think this one is number 5. Nevertheless, this is the fastest one I have run.

Half marathon is terrifying as running at almost max heart rate (avg 167 = 220-49 = 171 MHR x 98% = 167) for 13 miles is not a comfortable task. During an ultra my HR stays in zone 3 and 4, while this was zone 4 and 5.

Being in that physical state is almost meditative and takes a sort of “listening” and whence the spell is broken, the meditative nature is lost which thankfully did not occur yesterday until after 10 miles.

The race was at Silver Springs state park and featured sandy, grass covered, and hard packed dirt trails; it was a pretty course, weather was good, nice schwagg, whole bit.

Second place female; 14 overall, dependent upon who was there and who was having a good day. Either way, I worked for that and I was the second fastest there; so there’s that.

A great training run