What it really took me to run a half marathon: Part 2

The honest truth is, I'm not a natural runner. In fact, I smoked for 11-some-odd years. Frankly, I remember the moment I decided to quit; it was May 20, 2008. As I took my last drag and flicked the butt away, I thought to myself I'm never going smoke again. This is going to help change my life.What I wasn't thinking about was that in the following 6 years, I'd run 2 half marathons, cycle a full century, lead 2 boot camps and lean out my Buddha belly. If I told myself that at the time, I'd definitely think I was on drugs. haha. That being said, I recognized a long time ago that I need to stick to a very rigid training schedule in order to compete in any type of endurance event. 

Here's the technical side of my training. I think in spreadsheets, it works for me. I don't try to fight what works for me anymore by reading what works for other people. I've spent the time to hash out what makes me the best I can be and I stick to it. Nothing fancy, just straight forward, no mess, gung-ho, rockstar spreadsheets.

I mean, like life, sometime things just need to be made easy. Make a schedule that works, put your damn shoes on and go for a run. That's my approach to most things, especially with running. Without a doubt there were times when I just didn't feel like going for a run, did and was glad I did; and there were times where I said  F IT, laid in my bed and vegged out for the night. This goes back to my other statement in Part 1 about listening to my body. Some days, I just wasn't up for the challenge, and that's ok.

My training schedule:

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Total
11-Aug			3		3			6
18-Aug	5		3		4			12
25-Aug	6		4		4			14
1-Sep	7		4		5			16
8-Sep	8		5		5			18
15-Sep	9		5		5			19
22-Sep	10		5		7			22
29-Sep	11		6		3		2	22
6-Oct	13							13.1

142.1

What really happened LOL:

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Total
11-Aug	4.75							4.75
18-Aug							4.7	4.7
25-Aug			5.08		5.7			10.78
1-Sep		7			3.1			10.1
8-Sep	8.62		4.5			5		18.12
15-Sep	10			5				15
22-Sep	11.2				5		9	25.2
29-Sep								0
6-Oct	13.1							13.1
								101.75

As you can see, I missed my training regiment by over 40 miles and really, I'm not even mad. A couple of highlights from Week 1 to week 8.

Week 1 - MAJOR foot injury, pushing me to keep off of my feet for almost 2 weeks
Week 4 - Ran a really good 5k distance around my house - felt genuinely faster and was able to turn my feet over a lot quicker than I usually do. Very confidence inspiring.
Week 5 - First strong mileage week, was feeling good and consistent with average pace steadily decreasing
Week 7 - I definitely PEAKED this week. Running was strong on the 11.2 and 5, capped with a 9 mile hike around Del Water Gap. HOWEVER, I'm convinced that the 11.2 run really hurt a ligament in my foot, which was later exacerbated by the 5 mile run and hike (I tried the 'recovery run' method, which didn't work too well)
Week 8 - Affected by the heavy week 7, I didn't run all week in fear that I would further injure my foot.

here's the trending line for my average pace:
Actually run breakdowns and average pace

Date	Distance	Time	Pace
11-Aug	4.75	0:49:04	0:10:20
24-Aug	4.7	0:43:34	0:09:16
27-Aug	5.08	0:47:58	0:09:27
29-Aug	5	0:45:07	0:09:01
2-Sep	7	1:06:31	0:09:30
5-Sep	3.1	0:25:41	0:08:17
8-Sep	8.62	1:20:27	0:09:20
10-Sep	4.5	0:45:00	0:10:00	treadmill
13-Sep	5	0:42:49	0:08:34
15-Sep	10	1:31:29	0:09:09
18-Sep	5	0:42:52	0:08:34
20-Sep	5	0:43:32	0:08:42
22-Sep	11.12	1:40:00	0:09:00
26-Sep	5	0:42:37	0:08:31
6-Oct	13.1	2:09:48	0:09:55

So October 6th was supposed to be race day. We had heard a few days before that the run was canceled due to the government shutting down. No biggie, I decided to run the distance anyway.

As the morning came, I woke up and immediately ate a clif bar, drank some coffee and sucked down a GU gel. 15 minutes later, I took another GU and drank my preworkout (cause ya know, I needed the pump!). Stretching and warming up then took place and I was off!

The 26 Stages of Running

BOOM! immediately both my left and right foot felt uneasy. I didn't even get to the half mile mark before I started just feeling weird. I said to myself, ugh, this is 'race day, suck it up and stop being a bitch' and off I went. Rounding the 5k mark, I popped another GU in and headed towards RVCC (my friendly community college alma mater). The laps around the campus have about 125' of climbing up the front end and is about a 1.7 mile loop. The funny part is, as soon as I started running I noticed a million orange cones. Apparently, as part of my 3x loop around RVCC, I "participated' in the JDRF 5k walk. So maybe I should call that organization and tell them to give me a damn medal.

Heading back, I was on mile 8 or so, my feet were killing me by then. The slight elevation and descent, paired with funky feeling foot bridges started bringing in some intense pain. By way of compensation, I ended up adjusting my running gain slightly and that most definitely contributed to runner's knee and metatarsil pain in the left leg and arch pain in my right.

By mile 10, I felt like I was pulling a freight train with me. I look down and I'm seriously plodding along at an 11 minute pace. Wow. WTF happened?

Mile 10 > mile 11 > mile 12  all progressively got harder and slower. The pain was creeping up on all sides. Luckily, my energy levels were in check, so I didn't hit a wall, but the pain forced me to walk for a hot minute. The whole time I was thinking about how I was dealing with so much crazy complications when I ran a solid 11 miler only 2 weeks ago. I guess I'll never know.

As I approach 12.5 miles, I tried to pump myself up. Imagining the people that should have  been there to cheer me on. To say "hey dude, only another half mile!!!". I tried to imagine the clapping, the fanfare, the festivities, the banana and medal that I would have earned. And then reality kind of set in. I was running around my neighborhood and ended in an extremely anti-climactic way, in the middle of the street in Bridgewater suburbia.

well that was a shitty ending I thought, as I looked down to see the 13.1 click over on my Garmin watch.

I finished at 2'09". Not bad I think. In hindsight, had I been at the level I was 2 weeks prior, I would have finished right at the 2 hour mark. No big deal, I ran sub-2's my first race and that was more than enough for me. I'm happy I ran, I'm  happy I decided to take the challenge again to complete the distance and now I'm happy to start ass-to-grass squats at the gym.

Cheers to another short, quick chapter of my healthy life and here's an ugly cry for the medal that I never got.

:)