Laura and I have both been running relatively short distances for several years now, and have done a handful of races between 2
—4 miles. Laura has had a goal to do one marathon in her life for awhile, but I wasn't sure I'd ever increase my mileage much beyond 4-6. But this spring, I had the drive to run more often and for longer distances. I couldn't wait for the seemingly never-ending winter weather to go away so I could run outside comfortably. When spring finally arrived, I felt strong on my runs, and slowly started adding miles. On April 27, I went over 6 miles for the first time. A month later, I hit 7. Laura and I both started considering the Twin Cities 10 miler on October 5. We weren't ready to sign up for sure, but I formed a goal to get up to a 10 mile run in the fall whether it was at an official race or just on my own.
I got into a routine of roughly increasing a long weekend run by half a mile each week or two. Things went so well that I hit my 10 mile goal much earlier than I expected (August 10), and I started considering signing up for a half marathon. The Kansas City half on October 19 looked like a great excuse to make a trip home. I was on the fence about it for quite awhile, but finally pulled the trigger and signed up in mid September.
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my weekend training
(and race-day) runs |
And now the race is over, and I'm still glad I signed up for it! It went great. I very consciously started slow, not letting race day adrenaline or the natural tendency to stay with the pack speed me up. After a couple of miles, I tried to speed up to my goal pace of 10:00/mile. I thought I did, and settled into that pace for a long time. It turned out I was running a little slower than that, but I only checked my pace on my Nike+ running app a couple of times, and both times I checked it said I was actually going a little faster than that, so I thought I was good. I was unfortunately closer to 10:30 between mile 3 and 10.
I got a mid-race boost by stopping to hug and say hi to my cheering family around mile 7, and Laura and Frances also cheered me on at mile 10. I sped up for realsies at mile 10, and my last three miles went 9:26, 9:12, and 9:07. A strong finish, but my overall time was slower than I expected. My official time was 2:17:29, with a 10:30 pace. According to Nike+, I did 13.5 miles at a 10:14 pace. For a recreational runner like myself, the time shouldn't really matter that much, especially for my first one, but there is still a little nagging disappointment that I went a little slower than I know I could have. But just doing it is all that really matters, and I'm still a little surprised that I actually did. Even less than a year ago, a half didn't seem possible.
Laura and I are already scoping out races for spring and fall 2014, and I definitely want to choose another half to push myself harder in next year.
