I have been a case study on how not to detrain. I had signed up for this race, as it was three weeks prior to my full marathon, and great timing on the training schedule (even though I abandoned my plan). What happened this past week was basically me following a checklist of what not to do before a longer race. I loaded up the early part of the week with a couple of long runs (10+), and then one short run. And little stretching. Though I continued to drink lots of water as usual, I went to a three-hour wine tasting the night before the race, where I had plenty. And lots of new, untested food (free food and premium wine, why not?). Combine this with no more than five hours of sleep each of the five previous nights, and you have the making of a bad race. And I tried a new gel before the race. The only thing missing was trying new shoes for the race. Running this race I had low expectations. I hadn't trained for it, as I had for others, including this race the year before. What I found was I felt great. My perceived effort was lower than any other race, my heart rate was barely above my training pace, yet I was going faster than normal. Not only did I maintain my pace, I PR'd by nearly three minutes, dropping my half-marathon time to 1:41:38.