I ran my first Half Marathon yesterday.
I woke up at 5:30 Sunday morning. I rolled out of bed, headed towards the living room, and opened our front door. My eyes shot open when I realized that, standing there in boxers, 42 degrees is really cold. I closed out the chill and warmed up some pasta, stretched a little, and got into my running clothes.
Jonna stayed in bed till around 6:00, then she got ready as well. This was her 5k race. She's not a fan of early mornings or cold weather when they're mutually exclusive, so you can imagine her gusto when we were standing at a bus station before 7:00 in the morning.
Yep. Since there were almost 4,000 people racing between the 5k and half marathon, we opted to take a shuttle a mile from our apartment. The bus ride made everyone feel like giants; it must have been an elementary school bus, or at least a bus for really really small people.
I'm not small at ALL.
About half an hour before the race, I pulled off my sweater and traded my short sleeve shirt for long sleeves. It still wasn't 50 degrees, and it probably wouldn't be until about 10 o'clock. Ten minutes before the start, I made my way to the line. Well, not all the way to the line. Not even close, really. There were so many people...
As I made my way through the human labyrinth, there were various pace groups...1:30...1:40...1:50. After training for 3 months, I knew I probably could only sustain 11.5 minutes per mile. That would put me finishing in about 2.5 hours....aha! There actually was a 2:30 pace group, led by blue balloons and Green Shirt Girl. It was the next to last group. The 2:40 was clearly labeled as "RUN/WALK". So I popped in with the 2:30 folks just as the National Anthem started blaring on the horizon, muffled by the distance and general commotion.
I should make a couple of points here. First, I had no real intention of jogging 13.1 miles without stopping. Second, I had no real desire to cover 13.1 miles with RUN/WALK. I just needed to hang with the 2:30 group for as long as possible, then I could fade at the end and finish in under 2:40. I mean, seriously, that was the last pace group? From what I understood, 2 hours was a respectable time. I figured that 2.5 hours wouldn't be bad for a 235 pound guy on his first go. Maybe I had spent three months underestimating how difficult this would be.
Or maybe I hadn't. I crossed the starting line exactly three minutes after the gun, and for two miles those blue balloons were my pillar of cloud. By the start of Mile 3, I had caught up with Green Shirt Girl just in time to hear her say, "Hills up!" On queue, the breeze shifted into a headwind and the run really started.
The course took us around White Rock Lake, but since it only makes about a 10 mile loop, we had to venture through some established neighborhoods. And did those neighborhoods have some hills. Mile 3 through Mile 6 somehow offered rolling hills with a constant incline. It felt more like climbing up really, really, really long steps. Up. Flat. Up. Flat. Up. ...Flat. ...Up. ...Flat...Up....Flat....
Fortunately, this meant that the second half of the race was mostly flat or downhill...and that the wind was at our sides or back. After Mile 5, I settled into a pace a little faster than the 2:30 group and struck out on my own. The real problem was that most people finishing in over 2 hours did some kind of run/walk intervals. This meant that, unlike my other races, I couldn't find a talking buddy. At this point, I had been running for an hour and hadn't stopped yet, and I didn't feel like quitting my slow jog to walk and talk. It also didn't help that I was one of probably five people not wearing headphones...
Mile 6 through Mile 10 went pretty well. I did manage a couple of conversations with a 63 year old man in Texas flag running shorts. He hadn't ran a half marathon in a couple of years, so he just thought it would be fun. It's worth mentioning that the times I talked to him were on his walks, because his walk was the same speed as my jog. But I was still jogging...
The first real decision that I had to make was at Mile 10. My heart, lungs, and legs weren't hurting, but I was just getting tired. So I put off that decision as long as I could.
My. Goodness. I felt like. I had been going. And going. For hours. And I had. When I saw the Mile 12 marker about 400 yards away, I wasn't sure if I had enough energy left. I had been going for 135 minutes, so 15 more sounds easy. Until you're there.
One minute later, I put the 63,360th foot of the race behind me. I knew that my pace had slowed the last couple of miles. It slowed just enough for me to hear Green Shirt Girl and the 2:30 troop 100 yards behind me. She was loud. And that was all the encouragement I needed.
Ten minutes later, the starting line was in sight. The pace group was at least 200 yards behind me now, but I could hear the leader yelling, "DO NOT STOP. THAT IS THE STARTING LINE. THAT IS NOT THE FINISH LINE. YOU HAVE POINT TWO MILES TO GO. SO GO!!!"
And I went. As I came around the last corner and fixed my eyes on the finished line, I realized that I put off that decision from earlier just long enough. It wasn't time to walk now. So I ran. And 2:29:28 after I started, I crossed the line smiling.
I finished 2,347th. And the most important part of that sentence is the first two words.
