Race Report Brain Dump: My First Half-Marathon at the Chilly (1:38)
I raced the New Balance Chilly Half Marathon last weekend in Burlington. It was my first half and it went well. In 2017 when I started running again I was 230 lbs and very out of shape. By Spring 2018 I managed a couple of performances I'm proud of at the Around The Bay 30k (2:26) and the Sulphur Springs 50km trail ultra (5:40). But I lost motivation afterwards. Aside from stresses associated with having had another kid (this little cutey ), I'd say the main culprit for my lack of motivation was intermittent fasting, which I did for 9 months (no calories for 16 hours a day, 5 days a week). Ironically, I was doing this as a way to drop weight in order to get faster. But the experiment instead left me lacking energy and motivation. I learned a lot but definitely wouldn't recommend endurance athletes do any fasting. Eventually I started jogging (and eating like a normal human) again and by the end of 2019 I'd built my mileage up to 60km per week (90-95% easy ...