First, some background. I never actually started running with long races like this in mind. I just started running because
- I thought running a 5k seemed like a novel idea, and
- Breathing heavy 30 seconds into a game of hide and seek with the kids got old.
Anyway, as those of you know who have followed my blog, I found this program called Couch to 5k, and then another one called One Hour Runner, and at some point during a 6 mile run I decided to try to run 10 miles and I did. That’s when I realized that a half marathon was probably within reach and so I started following this program by Hal Higdon (who is apparently a pretty big deal, but I didn’t know that at the time) in hopes of running the Thunder Road Half Marathon on Dec. 13.
In the 8 months I’ve been running, I can honestly say I’ve only had 2 negative experiences. The first was when I bought my Garmin Forerunner 305. The Garmin is great, but that’s when I realized that my Nike+ sportband wasn’t measuring my runs as accurately as I had thought. Seems the Nike+ had been giving me as much as a quarter to a half mile extra distance which made my pace times appear to be quicker than they actually were. Bottom line: in order to run my first half under 2 hours, I was going to run around a 9:10/mile pace which I thought I could do according to my Nike+ runs, but the Garmin was more accurate and told a different story. To sum up in a word: crap! The likelihood of me breaking 2 hours looked a bit slimmer.
The second bad experience was 2 Saturdays before the race when I pulled up with what was either a cramp or a sign of overtraining in my left calf. I was just at the end of a 12.25 mile run and it hurt for a couple of days. I iced it, rested some, really cut down my mileage for 2 weeks before the race and still wasn’t sure what would happen. Now, with all that said, onto the race.
I got up early Saturday morning to carpool in with a couple other guys from my area. I’d never met either of them but enjoyed listening to their conversation in the car. Both were running the marathon and had both BQed before, so I gleaned as much wisdom from them as I could about running and stuff. We got to Charlotte, put on our bibs, and shot off into the Convention Center for one last bathroom stop, a group picture of the runners representing the Vac and Dash team, and then to the starting line. Somehow the people I was following entered the chute from the front and so I had to push my way through the mass of people to get as far back as I could in the crowd. I stopped trying when I got somewhere between the 4:00:00 pace group and the 4:15:00 pace group. If I could stay close to them, perhaps I’d have something left for the kick at the end to break 2 hours.
Once the gun sounded, we just waited until the crowd cleared enough for us to walk up to the line. A push of the start button on the Garmin and I was off. The first mile was a nice downhill and so I got to just cruise along and take it all in. I have never seen so many heads bobbing up and down and it was quite breathtaking. I thought briefly about pulling out my phone and snapping a picture, but then realized it would have been blurry, so I nixed that idea.
I had hoped to be able to bank some time on that first downhill section, but because of the crowd (about 3,500 people) it was hard to do much more than just go at the speed it went. My first mile pace was 9:21. The second mile was a long gradual incline, but my pace picked up because the crowd started to thin some. I was thrilled to see an uphill mile time of 9:03. My first negative split!! Woo-hoo! Now, if I could keep that up the rest of the way.
Mile 1 9:21
Mile 2 9:03
Miles 3-9 were fairly uneventful. I found myself a little disappointed because I was expecting live bands along the route but never saw one until I think the 10th mile marker. We did pass an older man who was wearing a bright yellow shirt that read “100+ and counting…” on the back and one of the female runners called out “100 what?” and he said “women.” She then told the men around us that we needed to hang out with that man and another guy said he thought 100 marathons would be easier than 100 women.
My times for these middle miles:
Mile 3 8:42
Mile 4 8:40
Mile 5 9:02
Mile 6 8:36
Mile 7 8:56
Mile 8 9:03
Mile 9 8:57
Mile 5 had been another long uphill and Mile 8 had some pretty nice hills in it, too. I must say that at this point I was excited because even though I was running faster than I probably should have, I felt really good. Sub 2 hours seemed very possible at the end of 9 miles, especially since I figured that I’d banked a little over 2 minutes to spread over the last 4 miles. If I could run 9:30 miles, I’d be close.
Mile 10 was when I noticed it. My left foot was really starting to hurt – almost like I was losing toenails (it was actually a blister on my little toe that was almost as wide as my toe – I didn’t know that until the race was over). It’s funny how something that small can really start to mess with your mind, because once I noticed it, I seemed to have an avalanche of negative thoughts. Suddenly I was aware of how cold I was, how tired I was, how much I wished that water station at the end of Mile 10 was the one at Mile 12. I really could not get my thoughts back under control for a couple of miles. The last straw for me mentally was when I noticed the 4:15:00 pace guy in front of me. I knew I had to be running faster than that after all the time I’d banked, but here I was apparently on pace for a 2:07:30 finish. Thinking that goal was gone, I starting walking up some of the harder hills and I walked through the Mile 10 and 12 water stations.
My times:
Mile 10 9:38
Mile 11 10:05
Miles 12 was terrible. I knew going into the race that the last bit was mostly uphill, and when I saw it I actually groaned out loud. It was all I could do to get through them, but at some point I looked over and saw a woman holding a sign that said “Run, Stephen! Run!” and I thought about my brother, Stephen, that we lost in 2003. That got me through to the last water stop at the end of Mile 12.
Mile 12 10:56
There was a nice flat section in the last full mile and it was a Godsend. I just relaxed and used that mile to think about how far I’d come since April. Having never run in my life, I was on the verge of completing my first half marathon. In 8 months I had lost 30 pounds, run 3 5ks, 2 10ks, and was now almost finished with a half. And even if I wasn’t going to break 2 hours, I was going to smash the goal I had of running under 10:00 miles for the race. As much as I didn’t want to walk at all that last mile, I did walk up one last hill near the end of Mile 13.
Mile 13 11:01
I had been sprinting before the last tenth because I had promised myself that I would open it up as soon as I could see the finish line. My pace for the last tenth of a mile was 9:38 and I crossed the line with a chip time of 2:03:28.
Next time, I break 2 hours.
Congrats
Thanks. Next time you run with me.