I Tried to Race Smart: Then I Decided to Race Dumb on Purpose (2025 Half-Marathon Recap)

September 15, 2025 | By DLake

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I finished half marathon #8 of 10 on my journey to get 1% better each year by doing a half marathon 1% better each year.

This year was an interesting one because I had a few life circumstances get in the way of my training. When that happens, I usually just do the race, knowing I’m not fit enough to run my best time. And when this happens, I would just feather the gas pedal and run with whatever fitness I had, finish at an okay time (1-2 minutes slower than my best time), and go “yay, I’m so grateful that I’m able to run and use my body and be only 1-2% slower than my best time”.

But I was over that toxic, optimistic talk, and I did something different. I wanted to really see if I had the fitness to run a 1:21:59 half-marathon. My newly optimized threshold style training was pointing to a huge YES. Still, I was about 5 weeks from fine-tuning that half-marathon best time engine.

I went into this race knowing I would blow up, but I didn’t know when. I assumed I would reach the 75% mark (15km/9 miles) and then slow down to a crawl, finishing at barely 1 hour 29 minutes. But… instead, something weird happened. Here are some scattered notes.

Sketches, Not Blueprints

• The training was good, but not perfect, as I was adapting it to my life and not stressing as much.
• I leaned harder into my experience rather than the details, and it worked.
• I did a few double (sub) threshold days, and my fitness is trending right — I also really liked them.
• I had a new race picked out later that would have given me a nice ramp-up—flatter, better—but it didn’t happen due to life doing the life thing that it does.
• So, life said, “Run now,” and I did.

The 15K Experiment

• I gave my brain permission to suffer early vs doing the negative split, where I start off easy and suffer later (which is usually the best thing to do, but not in this case).
• 15K (9 miles) of “maybe,” then 6K of “nope.”
• Then something weird happened after the 15km mark. While I slowed down because I knew I couldn’t maintain that pace anymore, my watch and my effort were very different.
  • I didn’t look down at my watch for about 1km (3-4 minutes), and I assumed I was running about 1 minute per km (40 seconds per mile) slower than my intended race pace.
  • But I actually went from 3:53 min/km to 4:06 min/km, 13 seconds, not 60 seconds. Whoa… that’s quite impressive.
  • Could I have run a 3:59 to end it?

What Positive Splits Taught Me

• I used to think negative splits were the best way to race, but what if positive splitting isn’t always a pacing error?
• What if it’s a stress test for both your mental and physical health?
• Could I suffer like that again? For another 2-3k (1-2 miles)? For another 5-6K (3 miles)?
• The gap between where I broke and where I adjusted is the training stimulus I didn’t know I needed.

Thoughts Looking Forward

• Eight years in and I’m still learning, which is crazy!
• The breakthroughs are quieter, and the races become experiments.
• No grand plan yet, moving into the next few months.
• Maybe a 5K focused training block or two or just maybe just recovery.
• But I learned something this time:
  • Positive splits might be a tool, not a failure.
  • If I aim to race smarter later, I need to race dumber (but intentionally) now.