On December 13, 2009 I ran the White Rock Half Marathon and almost didn’t live to tell about it.  I will begin, like my previous post, on how horrible I am at training.  I had been training pretty consistently for a few weeks and was ready for the half marathon about 5 weeks before the actual race.  In the five weeks leading up to the race, I moved, went on vacation, and stopped working out in general.  I maybe had one or two runs in those five weeks… so, I’m sure you know where this is going.  Come race day, I was not prepared, but not being one to back out of a high amounts of pain, I still went ahead and gave it a shot.

Unlike last race, I didn’t have a huge urge to hit the john before the race, I actually felt pretty relaxed.  The race was huge and the weather was amazing, around 45 degrees, excellent running weather.

The race began and I felt pretty good.  I was running 8 minute miles and felt amazing.  Then came mile 8 and my slow decent into the pits of hell.  At this point I can tell I’m no longer “feeling like a champ”, I’m slowing down considerably, around 30 seconds/mile, and I just don’t want to do this anymore.  Mile 10 rolls around and I’m ready to get this over with, the torture needs to stop and I just want to walk the rest of the way.  Mile 12 rolls around and I feel what will soon manifest itself as a giant cramp in my left leg.  Sure enough about 100 yards from the finish line it hits me like a ton of bricks.  A huge knot in my leg, a cramp so intense I could barely stand straight as my eyes watered.  A Kodak moment for sure.  Regardless, the crowd was pretty thick at this point and they seemed to get a little louder when they saw me struggling, so I limped the last 100 yards and across the finish line.

Ultimately, I achieved my goal which was come in under 2 hours.  With a little more training I think I can knock out 1:45 and if I push really hard maybe even 1:30.  We shall see, I still want to qualify for Boston one day.

Distance
HALF MAR

Clock Time
2:02:11

Chip Time
1:52:39

Overall Place
1416 / 8365

10K Split Rank
723

10K Split Time
49:40

10 Mile Rank
939

10 Mile Time
1:22:36

~david