It has taken me a good 2 days to come to peace with my performance in the Thanksgiving Day Half Marathon.
To understand that this needed to happen, so I can learn to deal with it.
To understand my limitations and my strengths.
To understand that everything can go wrong without warning. And to learn a very important lesson –

I had decided to treat this race as a training run, yet I did not do any of the usual preparations that I put in on friday nights.
I did not pay attention to my pre-race hydration and dinner.
I had my breakfast PB/banana sandwich on a bagel(instead of bread) – a first.
For various reasons, I had intermittent breaks in weekday runs (and the weekend long runs) after finishing Chicago.

I knew all this at the back of my mind, and yet continued to make those bad decisions. It was, after all, “only” 13.1 miles; a distance that I’ve done more than 10 times in the past 6 months. I showed absolutely no respect for the distance, or my body’s ability to do that distance over hills with minimal training and a recovering ankle.

The result – frustration.