In my life, I have ran four half marathons. This is quite a spectacular achievement for someone who spent the first thirty-two years of his life with the belief that running one single mile was a deadly and effective torture technique.
The first race I ran was in February 2011. My only official goal was to cross the finish line. I began preparing by running in July/August 2010, but didn’t start my real training until November. At the suggestion of my brother-in-law Brad, I used the same training regimen my sister used for her half—Hal Higdon’s well regarded novice program. Ish. I say that because I didn’t follow it as closely as I could have. Should have. The program mostly consists of shorter daily runs during the week and a long run on the weekend. I did pretty much all of the shorter daily runs, but I skipped a lot of the longer ones. The longest single distance I ran before the race was one eight mile trip.
When I ran that first race through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, I was fine for the first eight miles. The last five, on the other hand, were hell. The pavement was rough, and my Vibram Five-Finger minimalist/barefoot running shoes offered no protection to my tender feet. My body was unprepared for the distance, and I was over-dressed for the unseasonably hot morning. I dealt with cramps and pain and boredom and misery. It was not fun, and when I crossed the finish line (where medical personnel were attempting to revive another runner who collapsed), all I wanted to do was sit down. Two hours, twenty-two minutes, and some change was my final time. “Never again,” I told my friend and fellow runner Chris. “That was the worst thing ever.” I threw up three times in the next two hours, and could hardly walk for the rest of the day.
By the next week, Chris and I were talking about which race we would run next.
In the end, we decided on the Rock’n’Roll San Jose race in October later that year. I was still running a couple of times each week, so when my training program started in June I already had a solid foundation on which to build. I still used the Hal Higdon model, but I modified it to include the Krava Maga training I was learning at the time. Twice a week, I did a 50 minute Krav session, twice a week I would do shorter runs, and once a week I would do a longer run. I ran multiple 8 mile runs, and one 10 mile training run before the race. This training cycle also included the most brutal training runs I could imagine: several runs in 100 degree heat, and a few at 112 degree blistering heat while on business trips to Dallas.
My goal for San Jose was to listen to good music, enjoy all the pretty girls running the race, cross the finish line faster than my previous race, and not to stop to walk the entire race. You can put a checkmark next to all four; I finished at two hours, eight minutes, and some change. I kicked my previous time’s butt by fourteen minutes. When I crossed the finish line, I didn’t feel like collapsing. Within an hour, I felt just fine. That, I figured, is how a race was supposed to work.
My roommate and close friend Mikey G had hopped on the running train, and decided he was going to run the next half with me. A couple of our friends were doing it, so we decided to sign up for the Golden Gate Park half again, the next February. For my training, I did the opposite of my first race—I skipped a lot of the shorter daily runs, but made certain to complete the longer weekend runs. I did eight, nine, eleven, and up to twelve mile training runs prior to the race. Mikey G did all of the training, but an unfortunate illness struck him the week before the race and he was unable to run with us.
My goal was simply to beat my previous best time. Compared to the two races before it, I planned a lot more strategy. My pace for runs less than eight miles was roughly a minute and a half faster than my previous race, but I noticed that my longer runs weren’t as steady. So I decided to run the first eight or nine miles at the faster pace, and then I could slow down the last 4 or 5 to a more relaxed pace. The numbers all worked out to a record time, so I went with it.
It is a largely unknown fact that I hated that race. The first five miles were as miserable as any run I’d ever done, and I couldn’t point to any specific reason why. I told myself if I don’t feel better by mile eight, it’s not worth a final five of misery and I’ll drop out. At mile five, I ran into Chris, my running partner from the last two races who couldn’t run this race but came out to cheer me on. I stopped for a second to talk to him, and told him, “This is horrible, awful, worst thing ever.” He said, “maybe it will get better,” and then I hurried on. Of course, I stumbled, tripped, and almost fell flat on my face as I started back on the course. I found the humor, laughed at myself, and carried on. Chris was right, of course, it got better. The next three miles were a gentle down slope, and by mile eight I felt fine. Well enough, in fact, that I carried my faster pace all the way until mile ten before slowing down. I was ahead of my projected finish time, and with the frustration of the early part of the race, I took the last three miles very easy. Easier than I could have—I wasn’t concerned with getting the best time I could, as long as I beat my previous time.
I crossed the finish line at two hours, two minutes, and some change. The inner dialog with myself, though, was different. “I did not enjoy that race, not one single bit. I’m not sure I ever want to do this again.”
The race was early February, 2012. The beginning of March, I bought a road bike. I had no desire to run at all. The longest running I did was the short half-mile trek down to the gym as a warm up for my weight lifting. I was riding my bike, both commuting to work and casually.
I had made a promise to a friend, though, and when Melissa told me she was going to run in the San Francisco Giants half marathon in September, I had to fulfill my promise. I had said, “When you run your first half, I will run it with you.” So I signed up. I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to run the race, but I knew that I wanted to keep my promise.
I decided to try things differently, though, for my training. Bicycling was my new fitness hobby, and I didn’t want to completely disregard weight lifting through the training cycle. I wanted to see how effectively those two things could be implemented into preparing for endurance running. So I crafted a unique three month program for myself, which I started in June.
For the first month, I would spend two days at the gym weight lifting (including a 1 mile round-trip run to the gym), two days a week sprinting at the local football field, and one day taking a long (20-30 mile) bike ride. The sprinting was very simple—a two hundred yard jog, one forty yard dash, two one-hundred yard dash, and a two hundred yard cool down walk/jog.
The second month would be similar with two days at the gym and the long bicycle ride, but I substituted short runs instead of sprinting. The shorter runs started at two miles, and graduated up to four miles by the end of the month.
The third month dropped one of the days at the gym in favor of a longer run on the weekend. The short daily runs started at four miles, but moved up to 5½ by the end of the training session. I did two eights, a ten, and a twelve mile run for the longer training ones, and by the end of the month I dropped the day at the gym lifting weights.
Additionally, I was riding my bike seven miles a day commuting to work.
I decided to try a different strategy for race day. Unlike the previous race, where I planned to run eight miles at 8:30/mile and 5 at 10:00/mile, I wanted to maintain a consistent(-ish) pace from start to finish. My goal was to beat the two hour barrier (and in doing so, beat my previous best time), which would require a pace of 9:06/mile. I decided to shoot for a flat 9:00/mile.
I wasn’t sure how it was going to go: when I started running in July, the four months off had taken it’s toll and my pace was down. My cardio was fine—bicycling had seen to that—but my legs were still uncertain. When month three of training came along in August, I was seeing improvement, but the results were inconsistent. I would run a record time one day, and feel awful the next time out. Days I felt slow showed good times, and days I felt fast showed average times. The last one and a half miles of my ten and twelve milers sucked, hard. And then race day came.
I’m going to cut through it and get to the point. On race day, I kicked ass. I felt good for almost the entire race (except I had to pee for the first five miles, a problem easily fixed by a porta-potty; and a grumpy stomach at mile seven that was happy after downing half a Clif Energy Gel pack). I had planned for a slow first mile (the bottleneck of the starting line crowd slows you down), and it was slower than expected because I was way back in the crowd. I settled down into a nice comfortable pace after that, even a little faster than planned. I caught up to Melissa at about mile six (she had a couple minute head start out of the gate on me), I hit the few small hills strong, and on mile ten and twelve I cracked a few jokes with the runners around me. The finish line was in the SF Giants baseball stadium, and when I turned the corner into AT&T Park, I felt strong enough to kick it up and sprint across the finish line.
Did I mention that I crossed the finish line at one hour, fifty-sixe minutes, and a few short seconds. And I left time out on that course. If I had any idea I would feel that strong at the end, I would’ve picked up the pace earlier in the race, shave another minute or two off the time, easy.
For the first time in four races, when I crossed the finish line, I felt like I still had something left in the tank. For the first time, the finish line felt strong. Like I said, I kicked ass.
So, what was the difference between this race and the other three? As far as I can figure, these are the prime factors that (may have) contributed:
• A good night’s sleep. Every other race has been preceded by a night of tossing and turning and only a few hours of sleep.
• Optimal hydration. I drank a carton of grapefruit juice the night before, with a 16 oz bottle of home-brew unsweetened ice tea and a thermos of coffee on race morning. I stopped for water at most of the aid stations, but I never felt thirsty.
• Improved endurance training. Previously, the longest endurance workouts of my life were the long training runs and races. Since I started bicycling, I would regularly go on two, three, up to five hour rides. A two hour cardio workout was no longer out of the ordinary.
• Weight loss. My first three races were ran at an even 200 pounds. My weigh-in for this race: 185 pounds. Fifteen pounds lighter= a lot less work.
• Spectacular course. Starting right by AT&T Park in San Francisco, and following the coastline along the bay up to the Golden Gate Bridge and back. Mostly flat with a few easy hills, and covering so many San Francisco landmarks, including the Presidio, Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, the Embarcadero, views of Alcatraz and the Bay, and finishing inside the Giant’s ballpark. An ideal course for a tourist visiting San Francisco.
• Ideal pre-race delivery system. My ride to the starting line, provided by the excellent Mikey G, ensured an advantage no other runner could claim at the starting line.
• The awesomeness that is Nate.
It’s a race I would consider doing again. Of the three races I’ve participated in (I ran Golden Gate twice), I would put this one at a strong second. The “expo” for this race was weak sauce—and I had to travel out to San Francisco to attend the expo and pick up my race packet the day before the race. They ran out of satchel bags at the expo, so I couldn’t get one (although they had more on race day for gear drop-off so I ended up with one anyway). The expo was awful—race packet pickup, a DJ playing bad dance music, and two or three half-ass booths. Starting line organization was just fine, simple, nothing fancy, and no problems. Estimated pace corrals weren’t very clear, and most runners just ended up wherever they ended up. Didn’t cause any problems, though. The course was fine, clearly marked and easy to follow. There were a few spots where it became very narrow, but thankfully they were a couple of miles down the way and I didn’t experience any bottlenecking. I didn’t feel like the mile-markers were clearly placed. In fact, I wasn’t even sure most of them were there—I only saw markers for miles one, five, seven, and twelve. Melissa later told me that she saw all of them, though, so that might have just been me. There was a race timer visible at the 10k turnaround spot (which we passed twice, since it’s a there-and-back course), but the time made absolutely no sense and was useless to me. The only reason I knew my time and pace was my cell phone running the iMapMyRun app and chirping out distance, time, and pace to me every mile. The finish line—inside of AT&T ballpark—was very nice, and the runners were allowed to lounge around on the field after finishing. Spectators were allowed in the stands to cheer on the runners, but they couldn’t come down on the field to mingle with the runners. Safeway had tables with bagels, fruit, and swag bags. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, they had long ran out of swag bags. I did get a bagel, though, and it was very tasty. Best bagel I’ve had in my life. The swag that I did get (from my race packet pickup) was nifty though. A SF Giants Matt Cain Giants Race bobblehead, the satchel bag (which I almost didn’t get), and a nifty jersey shirt. The shirts were made by a company called Greenlight Apparel, a fact I know only because they are a customer of mine and ship stuff out regularly. It’s a very nice shirt, and they are a wonderful company—highly recommended to anyone looking for shirts for their race or event. I’m still trying to get them to sponsor me.
So, that was my race. It was a wonderful experience. For a local of the Bay Area, the San Jose Rock’n’Roll race would be a better choice, but for a tourist, outsider, or baseball fan the SF Giants tops. They do have a sister race earlier in the year in San Jose for the Giants minor league farm team, too, for a two-fer.
I don’t know when my next race will be, but I will definitely be up for another one when the opportunity arises. I think my next event will be bicycling, though, probably a Century ride. After (or before?) that, maybe triathalons. Who knows. We’ll see what happens.
1 comment:
Woohoo! Congrats, Nate!
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