This past weekend I did something not only out of my normal routine, but out of my comfort zone. I ran a half marathon. And you know what may have surprised me the most? I didn’t hate it.
At the end of August, a good friend brought up the idea of doing a half marathon before we turned 30. She was thinking she needed to do something significant before moving on to the next decade. I decided I could support a friend and check something off my bucket list. Come mid-September, I found myself the only one of the original group of girls who was going to run signed up. One signed up for a different race and the friend turning 30 ended up dropping the idea all together. I found myself slightly annoyed, since this was not my idea and wasn’t something I really wanted to do, and now I was doing it alone.
Once my original friends dropped out of the race, I convinced two other girls at work to do the race with me. One did the half marathon as well and the other did the 10K. Come race day, all three of us set personal records for distance run. We bribed ourselves with breakfast out after the race.
Throughout September and October I found myself logging miles either on the treadmill at the gym or in the park on weekends for my long runs. Before I knew it, a Saturday morning 8-miler would be done almost before I’d fully woken up. Once a week I was supposed to run 3 miles at race pace. Supposedly it makes you faster over time. After a few weeks of doing this, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself increasing the speed on the treadmill, even for a warm up! Not only was I running longer, I was running faster. What a pleasant surprise that was!
I realized some things along the way in training for this race. One, life gets in the way. No matter how perfect I thought I had my training schedule figured out, I was constantly switching days and distances based on what I had going on that week. The second thing I learned was that it’s dumb to sign up for a race at the end of October in Oregon. Because in addition to life, weather also gets in the way.
On the morning of the race, I had a game plan, but I didn’t feel 100% prepared. I hadn’t gotten as many long runs in as I would have liked and was a little nervous. My theory with races though, is that if you’re 85-90% of the way there, adrenaline and guts will make up for the rest.
All week I’d been praying that the nice fall weather we’d been having would hold throughout the weekend. Or at least until after my race was done. Instead, the first big fall storm was predicted for that Sunday. So I dressed expecting to get wet. I did get my wish of starting out dry. The first mile or two it was dark and gray but nothing was leaking out of the sky yet. Then a light drizzle started. That wasn’t so bad, I’ve run in drizzles lots of times. Miles four and five it really started to pour. Big thick drops that almost hurt when they hit. Mile six it started to monsoon. Just when you thought it couldn’t rain any harder, it did. And the wind started howling.
At this point, you’re so wet that you don’t even notice it anymore. You’re just praying that your iPod keeps working (both my friends’ ended up dying). My feet were sloshing in my shoes and I’d given up trying to avoid puddles or rivers of water in the road. Lightweight running shoes start to feel like cement slippers. And then the course started to go uphill. And not just any hill, up Terwilliger. I often run hills when training, but no sane person willingly chooses to run up Terwilliger. But here I was, eight miles in and starting the uphill climb. I was soaked beyond head to toe, running in a monsoon, running uphill and with a cold. Add in the exercise induced asthma and I could hear myself wheezing over my iPod. Just when I thought I’d have to walk, we hit a level spot. For the next big uphill climb, I was smarter and slipped behind and old man and paced off of him for the bulk of the hill.
Around mile nine, this bright thing appeared in the sky. I hadn’t even noticed that it had stopped raining. I choked down one more Gu for energy and picked up the pace. I knew that the last three miles were downhill and I was still in position to meet my secondary goal of finishing in less than two hours. Being a Goertzen, and slightly competitive, it wasn’t enough to just finish. Well, it was, but I really wanted to do my first half marathon sub-two.
Finishing down hill in the sunshine was a nice way to cap off the run. Even better was when my exhausted body crossed the finish line in one hour, fifty-nine minutes, thirty-five seconds. My knees hurt, my hips were sore, my feet were pruny and I could wring water out of my dry fit clothing, but I was done. Goals accomplished.
The last time I did a race, with the exception of Hood to Coast, I kept wondering why I was doing it because I wasn’t having any fun. I vividly remember hating running miles three to five of that race. That was an 8K, so I was a little nervous for busting out a 13-miler. Maybe I wasn’t as physically prepared as I would have liked, but I was mentally prepared for what it would take for me to run this. I knew I couldn’t start thinking, okay, only 13 miles to go, and count down from there. That’s too overwhelming. So I broke it into three different races. I had to run five miles. Then I had to run five more miles (I didn’t let myself think about the fact that most of this five miles was uphill). And then all I had to run was a 5K and I could do that in my sleep.
My first half marathon is in the books, with a decent time and I even enjoyed myself. I’m not saying I’d want to run one every day, but I’m not opposed to doing another one in the future. Next time though, I’m signing up for a race where or when the weather is better. I’ve run a half through a monsoon. Next time I’d just like the half.
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