10/22/2012

...i ran a half marathon...

For a couple of years now, friends have been trying to convince me to run a 1/2 marathon.  After Broad St, I always said I see no reason to run more then 10, in fact 6.2 is a pretty great distance.  What I heard in response most often is, "if you can run 10 you can run 13.1."  I am here to tell you that is true, I am capable of running 13.1 miles.  However, I don't ever want to do it again.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of why I'm not planning on doing another 1/2 marathon, I'll tell you about the race.  

Joe & I attended the expo with my sister in the late afternoon on Saturday (I didn't take any pictures there).  It wasn't very exciting, there weren't many vendors.  We pretty much just walked in, picked up our bibs, shirts & bags then headed out.  From the expo we went over to Shana's house where Bill prepared a carb-filled dinner for us.  After stuffing ourselves silly we headed from home and went straight to bed so we'd be rested for the run.
We were up bright and early at 6am so we'd be in Atlantic City with time to spare for the 8am start time.  We managed to find Mandy, Shana & Beth just before the start gun.
My mom and Bill were there as our cheering squad.  They had a couple of funny signs to encourage the runners, we ended up seeing them around mile 8.5.
I couldn't believe this guy.  He was running the marathon and juggling...show off...
Here's the nitty gritty.  I just plain and simply didn't enjoy myself.  Well that's not totally true, I loved that Joe & I trained together, we spent a few evenings a week and usually one weekend morning running together.  But I hated every training run over 8 miles, every time I crossed the 10 mile mark I would just fall apart.  And that's exactly what happened during the 1/2 marathon.  I trucked along with very few complaints until we hit mile 9.  Then I wanted to quit.  But mile 12, I'd taken two short walk breaks and would have been fine to wander off the side of the boardwalk never to be seen again.  I had some issue with my left calf but nothing debilitating, I was just tired and didn't want to go any further.
My average mile time was under 12 minutes which is what I was shooting for.
Joe and Mandy are literally my favorite people in the world after Sunday.  They both stayed with me THE ENTIRE RUN.  By the way, they are both way faster then me and could have gotten much better times if they'd just left me in their dust, but they didn't.  They were encouraging and just plain awesome!  I owe them an ice cream or something.
When we made it back to finisher's village we met up with Shana, Beth & Jess.  
My sister finished in somewhere around 2 hours and 10 minutes!  Surprisingly she still managed that fantastic time after wiping out around mile 1!  As she was running up onto the overpass she wiped out and cut up her knee and hands.  I'm impressed, I would have quit right then & there but she powered through the remaining 12 miles sore and bleeding.
At breakfast after the race Shana mentioned that she gets a runner's high after finishing an extra long run and she can't stop smiling all day.  That's when I realized it's just not for me.  When I finish my long runs I want to curl up in a ball and die...
So, now I know.  I don't enjoy running more then 10 miles.  I'll be sticking to 5Ks and 10Ks, might throw in the occasional 10 miler but no more 1/2 marathons.  I definitely won't be attempting a marathon!  I'll be a great cheerleader for all of my friends that want to hit the pavement for more then 2 hours but I won't be running along beside them.  At least I've got another medal to add to my collection!

4 comments:

  1. Way to go on finishing!!! I want to give a 1/2 marathon a shot next year. There was a Santa juggler in the 15k race I did last December. I was so mad when he passed me. I couldn't even beat a distracted runner!

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  2. ha, this was a pretty funny read :)

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  3. Anonymous10/26/2012

    Great blog! I stumble upon it (through the photo challenge :) I love to read positive, uplifting blogs. That's great that you ran a half-marathon. I would love to do that one day. Congratulations!
    PS - Cute doggie!!

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