Musings from the Middle of Nowhere: The Half

It's official: I am a half-marathon finisher! Here's the email I sent out to family, friends and co-workers, summarizing the ordeal:

Well, I did it! Sunday May 31st was the big day and I came through it alive. I slept surprisingly well Saturday night into Sunday...I thought I'd be a bundle of nervous energy, taking forever to fall asleep and then waking up every half hour out of fear of my alarm clock not going off at the ungodly hour of 4:30am. But I was in bed by 9, passed right out and was actually chipper as I bustled around before we left Sunday morning (Josh wasn't too impressed with that, I feel obligated to point out).

All week long, the weather forecasters had been predicting gorgeous weather for race day...up until a few hours beforehand. Then it was a 30% chance of rain, which isn't so bad because the odds are in your favor that it won't happen. Well, we start driving to Timonium and we're barely five miles from the house before it starts pouring. It rained the entire way down there, which, of course, made me panic because I was dressed for a sunny, warm day, not a chilly, wet one. But as I'm standing at the start line with Josh, wondering if I should give him my fleece jacket or wear it and risk getting too warm, the rain suddenly stopped. It ended up washing all traces of humidity out of the air and the weather conditions were perfect throughout the entire race, cool with a light wind.

So the gun goes off at 7:30am and we start running through the neighborhoods surrounding the fairgrounds. Miles 1 to 4 were more challenging than I would have liked - slight uphill grades with few chances to recover. But it was still cloudy and cool from the rain, so I breezed through the first four miles with no problems. Mile 4 started a fabulous downhill stretch on a wooded road, a part of the course that should have been heavenly...but, of course, I got a stitch in my side and, rather than enjoying the scenery, I spent the next mile focusing on riding it out. I was more worried about losing momentum by stopping to walk to get rid of the stitch than I was about it feeling like a rib was stabbing into my lung, so I toughed it out. By the time I'd gotten rid of it at the 5-mile marker, the course went uphill again (noticing a trend here? Who knew there were so many hills outside of Baltimore??) and I motored right up it. They had a timer at the 6-mile mark, and I was very pleased to see that I was maintaining a ten-minute mile pace...I'd run the first six miles in almost exactly an hour. My goal was to keep that up for the rest of the race, but little did I know that those hills I'd just conquered were nothing more than bumps compared to what was ahead.

Miles 6 and 7 were downhill, but I knew that the course doubled back on itself and I'd have to run back up the way I'd just come, and that was were the trouble started. That long, relentless uphill killed me and I had to stop to walk for the first time around mile 7 1/2. My lungs could take the stress, but my legs couldn't. My hamstring (which had been twinging all throughout training) started to feel tight and I was afraid of really getting hurt if I pushed too hard. So I walked for a bit. Miles 8 and 9 sucked big time...the uphill grade got even steeper and I wasn't the only runner having issues tackling it. I got a bit of a reprieve during miles 9 and 10, but 10 was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen - the road literally went straight up. It was funny because every single runner who rounded the corner and saw what was ahead made some kind of comment about it, a groan or a curse. So for that mile, I went from being a runner to a mountain climber, and was ecstatic when I got to mile 11 and saw that it was a shady downhill...I needed a break!

Miles 11 and 12 were a blur of industrial parks and shopping centers (we actually ran through a Kohl's parking lot), but I was hanging in there. At this point, I was keeping pace with a few other people and we encouraged each other, which definitely helped. I barely registered when I entered back into the fairgrounds and only had a mile to go. The only thing going through my mind at this time was "You will NOT stop, you will NOT stop." People who had already finished the race were lining the course and cheering the rest of us on, and I didn't want to look like a tool by giving in so close to the finish line. Seeing the mile 13 marker and knowing that I only had a tenth of a mile to go was such an exhilarating feeling, even though my body was ready to give out at that point (and the pictures prove it. Josh said he could see my upper body pushing forward but my legs were struggling to keep up. So much for good running form). But the finish line eventually loomed in front of me and I crossed it in 2:26:22 (that's the chip time. My gun time was 2:26:53). Not the best - it ends up averaging an 11:11 mile - but considering how tough the course was and that it was my first half-marathon, I'll take it.

So I did it! I can't thank you all enough for your support in this endeavor, whether it was listening to me talk about my training or donating money to UMGCC. I should mention too that I did reach my fundraising goal of $500! You can still donate up until June 30th, so here's the link if anyone wants to send a late donation in my name.

I have to say too that I had quite a few moments yesterday where I wondered what the hell I'd been thinking, signing up for something like that. But as I crossed the finish line, all I could think about was my next one. I'll be running the Philly Distance Run on Sunday September 20th (and will definitely improve my half-marathon time there. That course is a LOT flatter than what I faced yesterday!), and I'm using that as a training run leading up to my first marathon, the NCR Trail Marathon on Saturday November 28th. This running thing...it really gets in your blood if you let it!