The Time Has Come

Well, since this past February, my buddy and I have been training for one single goal, to run half marathon. Last Saturday, we did just that. The past few weeks we have really kicked into high gear running 10, 11, then 12 milers every Saturday. Now, that day had come. With my sore ankle I only ran once during the week, a 3.5 miler that I ran in undre 8:30 minute miles. I altered my diet so I would have plenty of energy (carbs) as my wife prepared a wonderful meal of pasta, with chucks of meat and delicious garlic bread the day before the race. I'm not sure if the garlic bread is on an approved diet list somewhere, but its on mine. I was a little too excited to sleep, but I've never had problems falling asleep at night, but 5 minutes after laying down I was out.

Then came the day of the race. Since the race was 45 minutes away, we had to get up at 5am. I got myself ready, got snacks for the kids and my wife, so they had something to sustain themselves. We had laid out the girls clothes the night before as well as everything else we would need. My buddy and his family was coming around 5:30, so we needed to be up, clothed, diapered (just one of us and its not me) and ready to go by then. While the night before the girls were excited to get up early and go, the day of, they were not as excited.

We got ready and were out the door by 5:45. As this half marathon was in the "big city" we had to park in a garage for a hourly price. Driving downtown is not all that fun and to have 4500 people crammed into downtown as well, the driving was not fun either. However, we managed to find a nice spot close the the starting line and as our wives got the children out of the cars and into strollers, my buddy and I walked to the starting line. When we got there, it was already packed with runners, volunteers, officials and the local college's marching band. Since my breakfast consisted of a banana, part of an energy drink mix and what would be an energy gel I wanted to use the rest room so I wouldn't have to hold it for over 2 hours. The line to the port-a-potties wasn't as bad as I thought, but moved at a snails pace. We waited in line for 15-20 minutes and I passed the time by stretching and chatting with my buddy. Finally relieved, we headed back to the starting line and we heard "T-minus 1 minute". Yep, waiting in line took all of our prep time from us. I felt fairly ready, excited and a little nervous about how my body would respond to 13 miles of constant running.

There were signs posted 20 or so feet apart with 2:40, 2:30, 2:20, 2:10 and so on all the way up to the starting line. This was so people like us could stand in the section where we thought our end time would be. We had planned a 10 minute a mile pace which would put us around 2:10. There were so many people that there was no way we were going to make it up there, but we snuck our way up to the 2:30 line and got to count down from 5. The gun fired and we were off! Well, the front of the line was off, we had to wait 5 minutes to reach the line. There was the overall clock and our chips would document our individual time and would not start until we crossed the starting line. It slowly approached as the band played a rousing tune to get us all pumped up. It was an uphill walk to the starting line and then as it got closer, we started to jog. By the time we crossed it we were at our pace that we hoped to maintain for over 2 hours. It was after the first mile that we finally saw our families. They were cheering us on and it was a nice boost for mile 2.

Here we are, still all smiles!

There we go off to finish 13.1 miles

The next 6 or so miles (so miles 2-8) went pretty smoothly. We did see the remains of someone's breakfast after mile 2 as well as a poor lady who tripped right in front of us. She seemed to be alreight though. Then we also saw a few people who had passed out with medical personnel assisting them. Other than those few incidents, the race was good. They had a few live bands preforming which helped give us a boost of energy. Also, there were aid stations every mile and a half to 2 miles with water and Gatorade. Due to the number of people waiting for a drink at the first station, we decided to wait as it had only been 2 miles. However, the very first time I got a drink, I tried to sip a little at a time as I was running, but what actually happened, was the water seemed to jump out of the cup and onto my shirt. A third of the drink got in my mouth at least, but my shirt was drenched the remainder of the race.

The course took us through downtown, by some nice lakes and wooded areas and then back to the city streets and finally around campus. Miles 9-12.5 were difficult with the hardest mile being mile 11. Being so close, but knowning there are still 2 miles left was a challenge. Mentally it was difficult not to mention physically. At mile 12, fellow racers who had finished and were walking back as well as fans kept saying, "You're almost there!" It should have been a relief to hear that, but with every step I could not see the finish and the "almost there" people clearly had a different definition of the word "almost" than I do. My buddy pointed out the back side of the building we started infront of so we knew we were close. We ran up a small hill and off a bike path to a paved street. The crowds had gathered and I knew, we were almost there. Up ahead we saw our familes again and got the last boost of evergy we needed as I was pretty zapped of all energy.

Here we are just before the final turn!

Tired, exhausted, soaked, but totally excited to finish this thing, we gave our kids a high five and rounded the final corner. The finished line was closer than I had pictured and a few stides later, we crossed the line at what the clock said 2 hours and 10 minutes. We had to keep moving as there were people behind us finishing as well, but my body just wanted to stop moving. Further up the line was the table with our medals. The lady put it around my neck and it was official. I had run a half marathon. It was difficult to feel any real excitement as I was just so tired! We walked through a gauntlet of volunteers offering us water, trail mix, bagels and other snacks. At the end of that line our families were waiting. I gave my kids a tenative hug as I was pretty soaked with sweat, water and Gatorade. My wife was more excited than I was as I was really too tired to process what I had just accomplished. It was an amazing moment.

Tired and soaked, but excited about finishing the half marathon

Two happy half marathon finishers

We really do stand out in a crowd.

As it turns out my official time was 2 hours 5 minutes and 57 seconds. I was 1544 person out of 3240 finishers (that's under half of all finishers). I was the 910 male out of 1473 men to finish and 162 out of 255 men between 30-34 years old. My buddy and I also came in under our 10 minute a mile pace. It was a big goal and we worked hard to get here and now that we have completed the half, we are now going to train for a FULL marathon in October. Wish us luck ... we're going to need it. Gotta run.

Energy Drinks, Powerbars, Gels and more

So this past week (early August) my wonderful wife and I went to a running store to ask a few questions about what I would need for long distance running. The guy was very nice and patient with me not knowing anything about running, but introduced me to Energy Gels that I can eat before and during long distance running to keep my energy up as well as an energy powered mix drink that does the same thing. Apparently for my body type I would need to consume 250-300 calories every hour to replenish what I would be losing in my running. That ended up being 16 oz bottle of drink and 2 gel packets per hour (which I should be running at least 6 miles each hour). So for the 11 mile run on Saturday I got 4 gels for my buddy and I to "enjoy" (I use the term loosely). I gotta say it is a very strange texture. I guess since it is called a "gel" its texture is just like it sounds, but the flavors are a little too strong. I had Tropical and it was awful, as was the Orange my buddy said. Halfway through around mile 6.5 we tried our second helping of gels which for both of us tasted much better. I mean it was still a gel, but much more tollerable.

The energy drink however, was not good at all! Not only did it taste weird, it make me sick. Over the past few weeks I've been able to add Gatorade to it to help the taste and pleasantness of it, but that first time was horrendous. I'm not sure if it helped, but we were able to run for all 11 miles so it didn't hurt.

The next week my buddy hosted and he had a powerbar. It was different, but not as difficult to get down as the drink or gels were. However, I had eggs for breakfast so add the powerbar on top of that and there was way too much stuff in my stomach for a good run. I felt like I was dragging the entire way. This was the 12 miler and the week before the half marathon. Around mile 11 besides my ankle aching pretty bad, my knee started hurting as well and I had to stop to walk for a quarter of a mile to regain my strength. So I learned not to eat that much before running, but at least I didn't lose the contents of my stomach during the run.

As far as the last run before the half goes, I was concerned that I had to walk. I was also concerned now that I had knee and ankle problems. This doesn't bode well for the half. Maybe it was all a fluke and everything will be peachy for the half. I guess we'll wait and see. Gotta run.

Ankle Me This ...

I have been away for a while and unable to find the time to update my running progress most of the month. Well, soon after my last post, I had done some research and found that I needed to up my miles I run in a week to better prepare for the half. So, I decided I'd run 4 times a week. I ran an Monday and Tuesday back-to-back mornings. Then I ran a Thursday and then Saturday for my long distance run. Well, that was the plan. Tuesday morning the run went fine, but for the next few days I was plagued with an ankle problem. Maybe it was lack of stretching the ankle, but it hurt. It hurt to walk, go up and down stairs and especially to run. Thursday I tried to run with it and I ended up only able to complete 3 miles before it got really bad. I iced it and tried to keep off of it for the next few days. By Saturday it was feeling well enough to do the long run of 10 miles. However, now it has become a constant worry for me. Having never had ankle issues, I wonder why something like this is starting to be painful. Maybe its my age (almost 31) or the fact that I've been running on it now consistantly for 5 (now 6) straight months. Both are probably true. I just hope moving forward this doesn't keep me from accomplishing my overall goal. Gotta run.