I DNFed my half marathon and feels so shitty about it even though probably the right call
I DNFed my half today in San Sebastián after 12K while attempting sub-1:40.
All my training data had backed up the goal for months, but then I battled some sort of cold/infection for weeks. It started with three pretty bad bouts of sore throat (suspected tonsillitis), then moved into my lungs, and I’ve basically been coughing up mucus for the past three weeks.
I kept training but scaled things down a lot. I still managed an 18K at 5:25/km entirely in Z2, and during the week and a half before the race I finally seemed to be getting back to normal.
Then this morning in San Sebastián, my HR during my warm-up was unusually high, around 25–30 bpm above what I’d normally expect. I kind of dismissed it as race-morning nerves/adrenaline.
Started the race at my planned pace and my HR shot up to around threshold almost immediately. I knew something was off, so after about 5K I started backing off. Even as my pace got slower and slower, my HR barely came down.
By around 10K I was getting chills, feeling cold and developing a headache. I stopped at 12K.
It was probably the right call because now, a few hours later, I’m properly sick again. Still no fever, but I have a horrible pressure/bar-like headache above my eyes that feels very much like the sinusitis I’m unfortunately prone to.
And yet I’m still fucking angry at myself for stopping. 😂 I know logically that continuing while feeling progressively worse probably wouldn’t have achieved anything, but a DNF is so out of character for me that part of my brain keeps going, “You should have just powered through.”
I have another half planned in three weeks, so hopefully there’s a silver lining and I can actually get healthy for that one.
Also, apparently my coping mechanism for being angry about DNFing San Sebastián was to impulse-sign up for the 2027 edition. 😂
San Sebastián is such a beautiful city and the parcours is so great. If anyone of you was there I hope you had a good race!
Anyway, thanks for reading my rant if you made it this far.