Once I finished my first marathon, I said: What did I do to myself? The next night I was signing for my second half marathon in Aswan.
After 48 hours of rest, I did some cross-training on the Elliptical bike followed by stretches.
For the following 3 days, I ran 6, 10, and 14 kilometers and then tapered to 5 kilometers 4 days before the race.
48 hours before the race I felt like catching a cold and had some sore throat and generalized leg pain.
Arrived Thursday afternoon in Aswan, checked into the hotel, had a walk on the corniche then ate lunch.
7 pm, went for the race registration and attended its briefing.
10 pm, bedtime but couldn’t sleep at all, very worried, didn’t feel good, and was too excited and anticipating to sleep.
4:45 am, woke up after a disturbed night’s sleep, took a quick snack, and was heading to the race venue at 5:15 am.
It felt quite crazy walking to the race before sunrise and thinking of what you are going to throw yourself into, but I felt energetic despite all the fears.
At 6:15 am the race started, I smoothed into the race with a slow pace and enjoyed the rhythm for the next 10 k. Starting from the 5k mark for each 2.5k I stopped and grabbed a small banana and a sip of water.
My plan was to start to gain momentum in the last 5k, but I started to pull myself from the 10k mark, from that moment I kept improving my pace and passing the runners until I reached the finish line.
Although my time was 5 minutes slower than the previous race, my plan was much better and smarter and it felt good and right to distribute the effort along with the race.
It’s better to finish strong and powerful than to finish weak and depleted.