Monday, January 19, 2009
Another Thought on the Half-Marathon
I had a thought as to why so many people were passing my up during the half marathon on Saturday (you know, in addition to my actually running really slow). My theory is that the vast majority of people that are crazy enough to sign up for running 13.1 miles in the middle of January are most likely really into running. As in, way more into running (and running fast in particular) than I am. Just a thought.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Patron Saint of Slow Runners
I feel like the patron saint of slow runners.
I ran the St. George Half Marathon this morning. In previous races, I had always started way back in the pack; there's always a long wait to get to the starting line and then I spend the first 10 minutes dodging and weaving my way past clumps of walkers/slow runners before I settle into my pace. This time I decided to start nearer to the front of the pack, on the theory that I would not have the hassle of having to avoid all the slow runners. So I started about 20 feet from the leaders, you know - those guys that are super skinny and have bulging leg muscles and probably run 10 miles before breakfast everyday, including today. Yeah, that was as close as I got to them the whole day; oh, except for when they had completed the loop in the course and were on their last (12th) mile and passing me when I was only 7 miles into the run. So the good news is that I did not have to waste any time dodging and weaving slower runners. Turns out that everyone else had to go around me; I was the slower runner. The entire race. Ugh.
But that's okay. I found my nice slow pace and I stuck to it. Didn't walk once, even though I was sorely tempted over the last couple of miles. I felt like one of my main purposes in the race today was to make other people feel good. I could almost hear people thinking "Hey, as long as I passed that guy I must be doing okay; he looks like he's in shape; he's even wearing a St George Marathon shirt." Of course by the end of the race I heard on more than one occasion a pair or a group of runners carrying on a conversation as the passed me about going so slow. "I'm sorry" one woman would say to the other; "but I really haven't trained enough and you're so good to run slow with me."
That's okay. I'm the patron saint of slow runners.
But, I did slightly better than I was hoping for. I finished the course in about 2 hours 8 and 1/2 minutes. Just under a 10:00 minute per mile pace. Not bad.
And I made a whole lot of people feel pretty good about themselves.
I ran the St. George Half Marathon this morning. In previous races, I had always started way back in the pack; there's always a long wait to get to the starting line and then I spend the first 10 minutes dodging and weaving my way past clumps of walkers/slow runners before I settle into my pace. This time I decided to start nearer to the front of the pack, on the theory that I would not have the hassle of having to avoid all the slow runners. So I started about 20 feet from the leaders, you know - those guys that are super skinny and have bulging leg muscles and probably run 10 miles before breakfast everyday, including today. Yeah, that was as close as I got to them the whole day; oh, except for when they had completed the loop in the course and were on their last (12th) mile and passing me when I was only 7 miles into the run. So the good news is that I did not have to waste any time dodging and weaving slower runners. Turns out that everyone else had to go around me; I was the slower runner. The entire race. Ugh.
But that's okay. I found my nice slow pace and I stuck to it. Didn't walk once, even though I was sorely tempted over the last couple of miles. I felt like one of my main purposes in the race today was to make other people feel good. I could almost hear people thinking "Hey, as long as I passed that guy I must be doing okay; he looks like he's in shape; he's even wearing a St George Marathon shirt." Of course by the end of the race I heard on more than one occasion a pair or a group of runners carrying on a conversation as the passed me about going so slow. "I'm sorry" one woman would say to the other; "but I really haven't trained enough and you're so good to run slow with me."
That's okay. I'm the patron saint of slow runners.
But, I did slightly better than I was hoping for. I finished the course in about 2 hours 8 and 1/2 minutes. Just under a 10:00 minute per mile pace. Not bad.
And I made a whole lot of people feel pretty good about themselves.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Last Big Push
Last big push before the Painters Half Marathon next Saturday in St. George. I ran somewhere between 10 and 11 miles this afternoon. Farthest I'd run since getting back into it after last Fall's St. George Marathon. Took it at a nice slow pace, no need to push it. Was a pretty good run, but still pretty tough on my muscles.
I only ran one other time this week, 4 miles on Wednesday. A week ago I ran 8 miles on Saturday. I'm excited to run the half marathon in a week. Should be better weather down there than up here.
I only ran one other time this week, 4 miles on Wednesday. A week ago I ran 8 miles on Saturday. I'm excited to run the half marathon in a week. Should be better weather down there than up here.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Some Numbers From This Morning's Run:
5:20 Time I got out no the road running.
16 Degrees Farenheit showing on the car wash sign when I passed it at 5:58 this morning.
Although that sounds a little high to me; it sure felt colder than that. Brrrrrrrr!
0 Number of other runners I saw on the road.
5 Number of miles run this morning.
50 Number of minutes it took me to run.
25 Number of minutes it took me to thaw out after running in the cold.
16 Degrees Farenheit showing on the car wash sign when I passed it at 5:58 this morning.
Although that sounds a little high to me; it sure felt colder than that. Brrrrrrrr!
0 Number of other runners I saw on the road.
5 Number of miles run this morning.
50 Number of minutes it took me to run.
25 Number of minutes it took me to thaw out after running in the cold.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Back in the Saddle
I've slowly gotten back in the saddle. This past week, I ran 3 miles on Tuesday, 5 miles yesterday. The week before I ran 3, 3, and 4. Current goal is to run the Painters Half Marathon in St. George on January 17th. So I need to be up to 8 or 10 miles as my long run probably by January.
Glutton for Punishment
I have heard that women somehow forget the full pains and agony of child birth, thus enabling them to actually decide to have more than one child. I don't know if that's true, but if so, there must be some kind of similar thing for running a marathon, because I have decided that somehow it would be a good idea for me to run the St. George Marathon again next year.
I signed up for something called the "Runners Series," which will allow me a guaranteed spot in the next St. George Marathon, to be run on October 3, 2009. They have designated 7 different races that take place in Washington County (Southern Utah). As long as I participate in at least 2 of them I will be ensured of the opportunity to kill myself again in October.
First up for me: Painters Half Marathon on January 17, 2009. Hopefully St. George in January won't be quite as cold as Salt Lake City in January.
I signed up for something called the "Runners Series," which will allow me a guaranteed spot in the next St. George Marathon, to be run on October 3, 2009. They have designated 7 different races that take place in Washington County (Southern Utah). As long as I participate in at least 2 of them I will be ensured of the opportunity to kill myself again in October.
First up for me: Painters Half Marathon on January 17, 2009. Hopefully St. George in January won't be quite as cold as Salt Lake City in January.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
SUCCESS!!!
Yesterday I successfully completed the St. George Marathon.
Wow.
I still can't believe that I did it. I've been training for this for about 10 months and I am so happy that I was able to do it without getting seriously injured. I have such a sense of accomplishment.
I want to preserve the day for posterity, so here goes on my recap of my marathon day:
MARATHON DAY
I slept over at my brother-in-law Wade's house because he was running the marathon with me and he lives closer to St. George. We weren't particularly interested in catching the very first shuttle buses up to the start line, which left at 4:00 in the morning. So we woke up around 4:15 and headed over, catching a shuttle around 5:00. As the bus was leaving town it started to rain, in what would be an ominous sign for the day's weather.
The bus ride to the start line traced the entire marathon route, so it was a little scary to see just exactly how far we would have to run that morning. It didn't help that the bus was taking it slow and it was raining pretty hard by that point. I understand that it took around 90 buses to shuttle all the runners up. 7,000 participants in the race. It was easy to tell the hard core runners just by looking at them. Wade and I? we did not look like hard core runners, but very much like the first time newbies that we were.
The bus arrived at the starting area -- a large stretch of the road that is sectioned off for the runners. There were thousands of people milling around in driving rain and strong head winds. The race organizers had set up rows of little bonfires and made available big garbage bags to help protect us from the rain. People were wearing garbage bags and huddled around the bonfires trying to keep warm. All in all a pretty miserable scene as we waited for the 6:45 start time.
The start time finally rolled around and we all pushed in together to squeeze through the start line so that the sensors could register each person's timing chip for the an official run time. It took Wade and I about 7 minutes from the gun start to get to the starting line. Everyone was bunched up together for probably the first half of the run before thinning out.
There was a consistent drizzle, occasionally increasing in strength to a good rain, until around 10:00 or 10:30. And the gray cloud cover never lifted throughout the entire morning, with temperatures hovering in the fifties for the whole race. With a pretty strong breeze bursting through every now and then to lower the effective temperature and maintaining the miserable weather conditions.
I didn't have an mp3 player to listen to anything throughout the marathon, so I was listening to the sound of my feet and the feet of hundreds of others around me pounding the pavement. Also there was at any given time a conversation going on between runners around me. For the first 6 or 7 miles I was running with a group of guys that kept calling out their pace time (around a 9:00 minute mile). At other times I heard various stories -- like marathon war stories. I overhead some people talking about meeting a guy at the Boston Marathon who had run 26 miles a day for 25 days in a row, with the Boston Marathon being on the 26th day. Woah. That's crazy.
There were aid stations every 2 miles beginning at mile 3, with water and gatorade, and sometimes Clif bars or ClifShots (packets of super-protein goop), and a few porta-potties. Sometimes there would be a line of a few people waiting for the porta-potty, but way more often I would be running along and see runners (both men and women) simply run off the side of the road and make use of a nearby bush or trees or outcropping of rocks to relieve themselves. This happened extremely often.
At about mile 7 we descended down into the small town of Veyo. After running through town we crossed a bridge and then began an ascent out of town that lasted for about a mile. Very tough hill to run up with an inordinate amount of people choosing to walk it instead of running. After that we entered Dammeron Valley, then Diamond Valley, then we passed Snow Canyon with some absolutely beautiful vistas, we then ascended Winchester Hill and began the final descents into St. George. I would say that about half of the run was a good down hill, a quarter fairly level, and a quarter was uphill.
The race organizers had set up mile markers every mile and I remember thinking that the markers were spaced out farther than I thought they should be; it felt like it took me longer than it should to get to the next mile marker. When I passed the 20-mile mark, I thought to myself, "this is now officially the longest run I have ever done in my entire life!"
Throughout the course the families and friends of runners had posted signs of encouragement and love. One of my favorite signs read "Running is a mental sport" followed immediately by a sign reading "And you're all insane!"
After my fast pace for the first 10 or so miles, I was forced to slow back to a much slower pace. After passing a number of people for the first 8 or so miles, it felt like the last 10 miles all I was doing was being passed. I was surprised though, that I was able to keep up a good pace, even if it was a slow pace, throughout most of the marathon; I only stopped to walk probably 3 or 4 times, for very short periods of time, with the longest walking break being about a minute long.
By the time we were coming into St. George there were around 3 miles to go. I was surprised at the number of people out along the route cheering the runners along. It was a nice boost to have so many people shouting encouragement. I was expecting to run the whole marathon in about 5 hours, trying to be realistic about my chances. I think that the amount of downhill running combined with my faster than normal start contributed to a faster time. When I turned the final corner and saw the finish line, I was surprised to see that the race clock read 4 hours and 44 minutes. And of course that was the clock measured from the gun time; it had taken me about 7 minutes to get to the starting line after the gun went off.
My official time: 4 hours, 37 minutes, 23 seconds.
!!!
Wow.
According to the official race results, I came in 3,515th place out of 5,030 that finished the race. About 70% of all finishers finished before me. The first place finisher finished in 2 hours, 22 minutes, right about the time that I crossed the half-way point.
Post-Race:
I have never been so sore in my entire life. My ankles are killing me and every muscle is in pain. It is extremely difficult to walk right now, but I know that things will get better. I'm pretty useless right now, as about the only time that I'm comfortable is when I'm laying in bed with about 1600 mg of ibuprofen in me. But man, what a feeling to have successfully run a marathon! I am so glad that I prepared adequately to be able to complete the run, and I am so grateful for Robin's continuing support of my training and helping me to accomplish my goal.
Wow.
I still can't believe that I did it. I've been training for this for about 10 months and I am so happy that I was able to do it without getting seriously injured. I have such a sense of accomplishment.
I want to preserve the day for posterity, so here goes on my recap of my marathon day:
MARATHON DAY
I slept over at my brother-in-law Wade's house because he was running the marathon with me and he lives closer to St. George. We weren't particularly interested in catching the very first shuttle buses up to the start line, which left at 4:00 in the morning. So we woke up around 4:15 and headed over, catching a shuttle around 5:00. As the bus was leaving town it started to rain, in what would be an ominous sign for the day's weather.
The bus ride to the start line traced the entire marathon route, so it was a little scary to see just exactly how far we would have to run that morning. It didn't help that the bus was taking it slow and it was raining pretty hard by that point. I understand that it took around 90 buses to shuttle all the runners up. 7,000 participants in the race. It was easy to tell the hard core runners just by looking at them. Wade and I? we did not look like hard core runners, but very much like the first time newbies that we were.
The bus arrived at the starting area -- a large stretch of the road that is sectioned off for the runners. There were thousands of people milling around in driving rain and strong head winds. The race organizers had set up rows of little bonfires and made available big garbage bags to help protect us from the rain. People were wearing garbage bags and huddled around the bonfires trying to keep warm. All in all a pretty miserable scene as we waited for the 6:45 start time.
The start time finally rolled around and we all pushed in together to squeeze through the start line so that the sensors could register each person's timing chip for the an official run time. It took Wade and I about 7 minutes from the gun start to get to the starting line. Everyone was bunched up together for probably the first half of the run before thinning out.
There was a consistent drizzle, occasionally increasing in strength to a good rain, until around 10:00 or 10:30. And the gray cloud cover never lifted throughout the entire morning, with temperatures hovering in the fifties for the whole race. With a pretty strong breeze bursting through every now and then to lower the effective temperature and maintaining the miserable weather conditions.
I didn't have an mp3 player to listen to anything throughout the marathon, so I was listening to the sound of my feet and the feet of hundreds of others around me pounding the pavement. Also there was at any given time a conversation going on between runners around me. For the first 6 or 7 miles I was running with a group of guys that kept calling out their pace time (around a 9:00 minute mile). At other times I heard various stories -- like marathon war stories. I overhead some people talking about meeting a guy at the Boston Marathon who had run 26 miles a day for 25 days in a row, with the Boston Marathon being on the 26th day. Woah. That's crazy.
There were aid stations every 2 miles beginning at mile 3, with water and gatorade, and sometimes Clif bars or ClifShots (packets of super-protein goop), and a few porta-potties. Sometimes there would be a line of a few people waiting for the porta-potty, but way more often I would be running along and see runners (both men and women) simply run off the side of the road and make use of a nearby bush or trees or outcropping of rocks to relieve themselves. This happened extremely often.
At about mile 7 we descended down into the small town of Veyo. After running through town we crossed a bridge and then began an ascent out of town that lasted for about a mile. Very tough hill to run up with an inordinate amount of people choosing to walk it instead of running. After that we entered Dammeron Valley, then Diamond Valley, then we passed Snow Canyon with some absolutely beautiful vistas, we then ascended Winchester Hill and began the final descents into St. George. I would say that about half of the run was a good down hill, a quarter fairly level, and a quarter was uphill.
The race organizers had set up mile markers every mile and I remember thinking that the markers were spaced out farther than I thought they should be; it felt like it took me longer than it should to get to the next mile marker. When I passed the 20-mile mark, I thought to myself, "this is now officially the longest run I have ever done in my entire life!"
Throughout the course the families and friends of runners had posted signs of encouragement and love. One of my favorite signs read "Running is a mental sport" followed immediately by a sign reading "And you're all insane!"
After my fast pace for the first 10 or so miles, I was forced to slow back to a much slower pace. After passing a number of people for the first 8 or so miles, it felt like the last 10 miles all I was doing was being passed. I was surprised though, that I was able to keep up a good pace, even if it was a slow pace, throughout most of the marathon; I only stopped to walk probably 3 or 4 times, for very short periods of time, with the longest walking break being about a minute long.
By the time we were coming into St. George there were around 3 miles to go. I was surprised at the number of people out along the route cheering the runners along. It was a nice boost to have so many people shouting encouragement. I was expecting to run the whole marathon in about 5 hours, trying to be realistic about my chances. I think that the amount of downhill running combined with my faster than normal start contributed to a faster time. When I turned the final corner and saw the finish line, I was surprised to see that the race clock read 4 hours and 44 minutes. And of course that was the clock measured from the gun time; it had taken me about 7 minutes to get to the starting line after the gun went off.
My official time: 4 hours, 37 minutes, 23 seconds.
!!!
Wow.
According to the official race results, I came in 3,515th place out of 5,030 that finished the race. About 70% of all finishers finished before me. The first place finisher finished in 2 hours, 22 minutes, right about the time that I crossed the half-way point.
Post-Race:
I have never been so sore in my entire life. My ankles are killing me and every muscle is in pain. It is extremely difficult to walk right now, but I know that things will get better. I'm pretty useless right now, as about the only time that I'm comfortable is when I'm laying in bed with about 1600 mg of ibuprofen in me. But man, what a feeling to have successfully run a marathon! I am so glad that I prepared adequately to be able to complete the run, and I am so grateful for Robin's continuing support of my training and helping me to accomplish my goal.
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