My First Half Marathon

I've been a terrible blogger lately. There's been a lot of crap going on in my life, and I just haven't had the heart to write...however, let's recap a bit and I'll talk about my long-awaited first half-marathon race.

I wasn't sure I'd make it to the half-marathon I wanted to do. Lack of sleep, no appetite, and poor training wasn't the best way to get to it, but I wanted to do it just to see if I could.

I ran the Slacker Half-Marathon from Loveland, CO to Georgetown, CO on June 26th, 2010. Don't let the name fool you. You start out at about 10,000 feet and end up at 8,400 feet, so yes, there are some great downhill sections to the race. However, the first mile of the race is a gradual uphill, the last half mile is uphill, and there is a combination of flat and up/downhills in between.

Now, I've never run above about 9.5 miles at a time before, so I knew this would be pushing it. I started out slow and forced myself to keep an easy pace. The first 5 miles were on a dirt-packed trail in the shade, so that felt great. After mile 5, the path merged onto a road that ran alongside I-70. The rest of the race was on pavement, and boy did it get hot!

I felt pretty good through the 6.2 mile mark (a 10k, the longest race I'd done up to that point). Of course, I then thought, "I'm not even halfway yet...yikes!" I kept going and was able to use the steep downhill parts to my advantage and conserve energy on the uphill portions. I did stop briefly at miles 6 and 8 to grab a cup of Gatorade (which is darn near impossible to drink from a cup while running). By mile 9, I was starting to feel tired. My legs were becoming jelly-fied, but I was still breathing pretty well (another concern of mine at that elevation). I did chew on one of my Powerbar energy gummies, and I'm not sure whether or not it helped, but I felt pretty good after I hit mile 10. Then I thought, "Ok, 3 more miles, that's just a 5k." Just a 5k turned out to be pretty difficult on jelly legs. I knew if I walked at all, I would never get going again, so I pushed along and prayed my legs didn't give out.

The last 3 miles was purely a mental exercise. I just kept telling myself I could make it, only a little farther, etc. When I hit the last half mile, the uphill part, I was really struggling. My legs were not cooperating, so my breathing became ragged in an attempt to get more oxygen to my legs. Somehow, I managed to sprint the last 100 yards to the finish and am happy to say I ran the whole darn thing. That was my initial goal. I also wanted to finish in under two and a half hours. My finish time was two hours and thirteen minutes, so I was ecstatic!

After picking up my awesome tech shirt, I had to hobble (literally) a little over a mile back to my car. That's kind of mean, huh? I had to sit in my car for a good 20 minutes before my legs felt normal enough to drive. I got home and soaked in an ice bath and took it easy for the rest of the day.

The next morning, my legs reminded me how angry they were. My quads and ankles in particular were the most sore. Surprisingly, my calves, shins, and knees really didn't hurt, so that was good news! That's the first run I've been on that I actually felt pain the next day. Sure, other runs have made me a bit sore, but nothing like this. Thank goodness for ice packs, icy hot, compression socks (which I wore in the race) and ibuprofen.


Race photo by Foto Jack

I'm planning to do my next half-marathon in August, so that gives me another month to get some good training in. That will be followed by the Warrior Dash. We'll see what happens!