First Half Marathon
My first half marathon was supposed to nothing more than an exercise, a formality, but it turned into something else entirely. You see, unlike runners who concentrate on the half marathon distance, I signed up to run the Austin Livestrong Half Marathon more as a benchmark than a race. My goal since restarting training nine months ago was simply to get back in running shape, a goal I hoped would be evidenced by a decent time (4:00 hours or less) in a marathon sometime within 12 months' time.
My readiness for Austin as a first marathon back was questionable. I felt extremely confident in my ability to run a 4:10 26.2 miler and reasonably confident in my ability to come in under 4 hours. But my problem, if you can call it that, was that my running had been improving at a rapid rate over they past two months. Since the fall, I'd gone from running 11-plus minute miles on long runs to 9 or slighter faster splits. Of late, I'd been regularly doing double-digit runs at an 8:30 pace. I felt as though a 9-plus minute paced marathon was going to be a disappointment to me. So instead of doing that just to do it, I decided instead to run a half at a pace I'd feel happy with. Austin is a tough course, with long climbs early on and several substantial hills later in the race, so I wasn't looking to set the world on fire. But I did think I could reasonably aim for 8:30 miles and with some great effort, come close to hitting that.
As the race got closer, however, I thought that maybe I wasn't pushing the envelope hard enough. While the course was tough, I'd done close to 8:30 at nearly that distance more than once over the past month, so why not ask for more. With the encouragement of a former coach and friend, I decided to shoot for around 8:00 miles with a goal of a sub-1:50 half.
The race start was busy and the winding turns with hordes of racers I found really fun, like Formula One racing. I kept up with my 8:00 pace group through the turns and by the start of the climb up Congress, I was right with them. On the gradual rise after Oltorf, I went out beyond them, eventually picking up a few hundred yards on the pacers, a lead I gave back, and then some, on the tough climb up Ben White toward South First. I was feeling the pace. My legs felt fatigued, and while I knew I could keep up the pace for a while, I didn't feel as though I could keep it up for the next 8-plus miles. My concerns were validated when, after making the turn down South First, a long, downhill that parallels the long uphill I'd just done up Congress, I realized that the benefit of the downhill was negligible. I was seeing on my Garmin a pace of between 7:45 and 7:50, not enough to put much in the bank for the rugged hills I'd encounter toward the end.
As I bottomed out on South First, I started seeing some friends from Austin Fit, and that helped. Mia Zmud spotted me and high-fived me--a much needed jolt of encouragement, and minutes later I saw Diane Booher, an Austin Fit coach and wife of my first first running coach, James Booher. It was just what I needed.
Down Cesar Chavez I made a good pace, right around 8:00, and I was still, believe it or not, still slightly faster on my watch than 8:00 per mile, though the pace group was 30 or 40 seconds in front of me.
That's when the wheels started coming off.
I don't know quite what it was, but as we passed MoPac and started to climb toward the boulevard paralleling it heading north, I crashed inside. Passing the 10 mile mark, I was just slower than 8 minute miles but I felt defeated. I stopped running and started walking. Then I asked myself, "Am I walking because I can't run or because I don't want to run?" Knowing the answer immediately, I was back at it, powering up the hill though the fatigue and making the turn. Up ahead where the half and full split off I began to realize that, hey, I was almost there. I had a 5-K left to go, and I can do a 5-K, right?
Then I saw our program director, Jen, and got a high-five from her, and THEN I saw my friend Mercedes, who'd been so encouraging to me throughout my training, and I made beeline across the course for a big smile. (She later told me I looked so strong at that point....ha! Nothing could have been further from the truth, but seeing my friends must have made it look that way.)
I was stoked, I could do this, I told myself. Then we dipped down under Mopac and started a series of steep hills that tested all the racers, many of whom simply started walking them. I was tempted, but decided that even if it wasn't pretty, I was going to keep the legs moving in something resembling a running gait. My Garmin read 8:05 by the time I topped one hill, and it read just 8:08 when I topped the diabolical hill at 15th just east of Lamar. Nasty.
Somewhere on 15th I spotted a sign. Now, signs are a source of much-needed distraction when you're running a long race. Most of them are funny. Some are touching. This one got me: it said simply," Remember the reasons you're running." And I thought of my family, my friends and my late mom, whose dad had run the Boston Marathon 99 years ago and who was so proud of my first marathon. I started welling up and wondered how balling my eyes out would affect my pace. Which made me smile. And I picked it up again.
Around the corner on 15th we turned as a group only to see San Jacinto, a hill I'd run countless times with the group, and I told myself, "This ain't a hill; it's a speed bump!" and powered up it, still under 8:10 on the Garmin--this had become my new goal, along with sub-1:50, which looked like a lock at this point.
Making the turn at 11th I started getting passed by a handful of random runners in nearly a full sprint. First thought: if they had that much steam left, they should have used it before. Second thought: I'm good just doing what I'm doing right now.
I turned the corner back onto Congress and headed for the finishers chute. Past the pads, arms raised, big smile on my face: 1:47. I'd asked for way too much and gotten nearly all of it. Lucky me.
Somehow, the half marathon, which I'd intended as nothing more than a benchmark, had turned into an important event, and before the day was done, I'd started thinking about the wonderful challenge and opportunity this distance has to offer me.
As I'd done with my first marathon a few years ago, I'd established an automatic personal record (PR; your first one is automatically a PR because it's your best ever), but one that I could be happy with and that wouldn't be easy for me to better. I'm proud of both marks, not for what because they'll get me on the cover of Runner's World, but but for what they mean personally. The trip back has been incredible, with great friends--many of whom had great marathons or half marathons on Sunday, too--great scenery, great challenges and wonderful memories.
As I said, lucky me.
My readiness for Austin as a first marathon back was questionable. I felt extremely confident in my ability to run a 4:10 26.2 miler and reasonably confident in my ability to come in under 4 hours. But my problem, if you can call it that, was that my running had been improving at a rapid rate over they past two months. Since the fall, I'd gone from running 11-plus minute miles on long runs to 9 or slighter faster splits. Of late, I'd been regularly doing double-digit runs at an 8:30 pace. I felt as though a 9-plus minute paced marathon was going to be a disappointment to me. So instead of doing that just to do it, I decided instead to run a half at a pace I'd feel happy with. Austin is a tough course, with long climbs early on and several substantial hills later in the race, so I wasn't looking to set the world on fire. But I did think I could reasonably aim for 8:30 miles and with some great effort, come close to hitting that.
As the race got closer, however, I thought that maybe I wasn't pushing the envelope hard enough. While the course was tough, I'd done close to 8:30 at nearly that distance more than once over the past month, so why not ask for more. With the encouragement of a former coach and friend, I decided to shoot for around 8:00 miles with a goal of a sub-1:50 half.
The race start was busy and the winding turns with hordes of racers I found really fun, like Formula One racing. I kept up with my 8:00 pace group through the turns and by the start of the climb up Congress, I was right with them. On the gradual rise after Oltorf, I went out beyond them, eventually picking up a few hundred yards on the pacers, a lead I gave back, and then some, on the tough climb up Ben White toward South First. I was feeling the pace. My legs felt fatigued, and while I knew I could keep up the pace for a while, I didn't feel as though I could keep it up for the next 8-plus miles. My concerns were validated when, after making the turn down South First, a long, downhill that parallels the long uphill I'd just done up Congress, I realized that the benefit of the downhill was negligible. I was seeing on my Garmin a pace of between 7:45 and 7:50, not enough to put much in the bank for the rugged hills I'd encounter toward the end.
As I bottomed out on South First, I started seeing some friends from Austin Fit, and that helped. Mia Zmud spotted me and high-fived me--a much needed jolt of encouragement, and minutes later I saw Diane Booher, an Austin Fit coach and wife of my first first running coach, James Booher. It was just what I needed.
Down Cesar Chavez I made a good pace, right around 8:00, and I was still, believe it or not, still slightly faster on my watch than 8:00 per mile, though the pace group was 30 or 40 seconds in front of me.
That's when the wheels started coming off.
I don't know quite what it was, but as we passed MoPac and started to climb toward the boulevard paralleling it heading north, I crashed inside. Passing the 10 mile mark, I was just slower than 8 minute miles but I felt defeated. I stopped running and started walking. Then I asked myself, "Am I walking because I can't run or because I don't want to run?" Knowing the answer immediately, I was back at it, powering up the hill though the fatigue and making the turn. Up ahead where the half and full split off I began to realize that, hey, I was almost there. I had a 5-K left to go, and I can do a 5-K, right?
Then I saw our program director, Jen, and got a high-five from her, and THEN I saw my friend Mercedes, who'd been so encouraging to me throughout my training, and I made beeline across the course for a big smile. (She later told me I looked so strong at that point....ha! Nothing could have been further from the truth, but seeing my friends must have made it look that way.)
I was stoked, I could do this, I told myself. Then we dipped down under Mopac and started a series of steep hills that tested all the racers, many of whom simply started walking them. I was tempted, but decided that even if it wasn't pretty, I was going to keep the legs moving in something resembling a running gait. My Garmin read 8:05 by the time I topped one hill, and it read just 8:08 when I topped the diabolical hill at 15th just east of Lamar. Nasty.
Somewhere on 15th I spotted a sign. Now, signs are a source of much-needed distraction when you're running a long race. Most of them are funny. Some are touching. This one got me: it said simply," Remember the reasons you're running." And I thought of my family, my friends and my late mom, whose dad had run the Boston Marathon 99 years ago and who was so proud of my first marathon. I started welling up and wondered how balling my eyes out would affect my pace. Which made me smile. And I picked it up again.
Around the corner on 15th we turned as a group only to see San Jacinto, a hill I'd run countless times with the group, and I told myself, "This ain't a hill; it's a speed bump!" and powered up it, still under 8:10 on the Garmin--this had become my new goal, along with sub-1:50, which looked like a lock at this point.
Making the turn at 11th I started getting passed by a handful of random runners in nearly a full sprint. First thought: if they had that much steam left, they should have used it before. Second thought: I'm good just doing what I'm doing right now.
I turned the corner back onto Congress and headed for the finishers chute. Past the pads, arms raised, big smile on my face: 1:47. I'd asked for way too much and gotten nearly all of it. Lucky me.
Somehow, the half marathon, which I'd intended as nothing more than a benchmark, had turned into an important event, and before the day was done, I'd started thinking about the wonderful challenge and opportunity this distance has to offer me.
As I'd done with my first marathon a few years ago, I'd established an automatic personal record (PR; your first one is automatically a PR because it's your best ever), but one that I could be happy with and that wouldn't be easy for me to better. I'm proud of both marks, not for what because they'll get me on the cover of Runner's World, but but for what they mean personally. The trip back has been incredible, with great friends--many of whom had great marathons or half marathons on Sunday, too--great scenery, great challenges and wonderful memories.
As I said, lucky me.
posted by Robert Goyer at
1:45 PM
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