I ran my first half marathon today. Dad and I ran together for most of the race. The plan was for me to stay with Dad for the first 10 miles then speed up for the last 3. I felt good for the first 3 miles. We ran 5:48, 6:03, then another low 6:00. In the 4th mile, I started feeling a little strained, my heart was hurting a little but it went away. I felt surprisingly good for the next 4 miles. Even though we were running pretty fast, I think Dad and I ran a couple of 5:50s maybe even 5:40. Miles 6 and 7 especially felt very good. I wanted to go a little faster but Dad told me to hang back. My legs hurt but I just kept running the same pace. We slowed down a lot on mile 9. I think we ran like 6:20. Dad told me to speed at mile 9. It turned out to be too soon though. My tenth mile was pretty good. About 6:00 flat. Then my legs started really hurting. I felt like I was still running at about the same pace even though I was in a lot of pain. Until I hit the hill at mile 11. That really killed me. I slowed down a lot. It was the worst I have ever felt in my entire running life. All of the pain was in my legs, especially my thighs and quads. Dad caught up to me at about 12 miles. He could have passed me but he slowed down with me and encouraged me to keep going. With someone to run with I was able to speed back up to 6:00 pace. My legs still hurt a lot though. I had a decent kick, my total time was 1:19:37, Dad was right behind in 1:19:38. That's a pretty good time for my first half marathon. I got 16th overall and first in my age division. I probably should have stayed with Dad for longer, but it was a good learning experience. It was a good run. A day later I'm surprisingly not super sore. What's odd is my speed is about the same as Benjamin's was at my age but my endurance is significantly worse. He ran 1:15 in his first half with similar speed to mine. I guess I just need to develop more. But I'm happy with my result.
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