Good test

With a half marathon coming up in the middle of May, today seemed like a good time to test my readiness. I headed out to Smithville Lake to run the trail. It was cool - still in the upper 30s when I started - but there was virtually no wind and the sky was clear. Beautiful out there.
I decided I would run exactly a half marathon, and I started out slowly and gradually speeded up in the first half of the run so that at the turn I was averaging 9:09 per mile. I had a lot left at that point, so I decided that I'd at least go for a negative split in the second half. My strategy was to not push it up the hills, which were small anyway, then kind of leg it out on any of the downhills and level areas. All of my splits after the turn were under 9, and several were under 8:30, the fastest being 8:18.
I got a little leg weary in the last couple of miles, but the last two were still 8:39 and 8:36, which surprised me. I thought they were quite a bit slower than that.
Anyway, the result was a half marathon in 1:57:54. So, I guess I'm in good enough shape to race one in May. -- Rob