What now? Post race weirdness

I never ran before December 2011. In the midst of a 40+ pound weight loss journey, I thought I would give it a try. I started slow and gradually worked my way up to running for 30 minutes straight. Did my first 5k ever and averaged about a 12 minute mile. Some friends convinced me to set my sights on longer distances. I joined a running group, figured out which pace group worked for me and set my sights on a half marathon.

Well, I accomplished that and just after that feeling of victory and elation I was left with.... well, what now? It is not that I am even contemplating giving up running but I feel weird not having that goal in front of me to work toward and accomplish. And before you say "Well, duh... pick another race!" I have already done that. I will be running the Disney Marathon weekend half in January.

Now I have to choose some wise goals that are slightly less obvious than just distance goals which, in retrospect, were the only real goals I had before. To that end, I have purchased a couple of books to help me figure out WHICH goals to set and how to get there. The first is the FIRST book. (Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training) aka Runners World Run Less, Run Faster. My friend has been using this book and I like that it gives you a specific cross training plan and it tells you the pace you should be aiming for in each run. So, I have set up a plan based on their advice for my training leading up to the Disney run.

A second goal is to strengthen the backs of my legs. I have always had strong, developed quads and the more I look into it, the more I realize that is a common trait of young women. I don't qualify as a "young" woman anymore but this has always been true of my legs so I am interested in how I can develop those muscles and have some specific ideas for how to go about doing so. I have discovered that youtube is a great resource for this kind of thing.

For example, one draw back to relative weakness in the hamstrings and glutes is IT Band issues. The Gluteus Medius muscle is responsible for stability in the hips and if your quads are WAY stronger, then some pulling on the IT band can happen and the knee starts to suffer. One way to strengthen the gluteus medius is the clamshell but often the quads will try to help. Cycling Physio explains how to isolate the Gluteus Medius.

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So - stuff like this is the direction I am going these days.  :)

Spinx Run Fest Half Marathon 2012

Race report: My first Half Marathon

When I first had the idea of doing a half marathon, the Disney Princess race was in my mind. Then I quickly realized that I would be ready WAY earlier so I looked for a half marathon in the fall. I thought I was all set with the Silver Comet half since it is sponsored by my running group Get Fit Atlanta, but life intervenes. My husband, who is an avid cyclist, found out about the George Hincapie GranFondo and it was the same day as the Silver Comet. “No worries!” Says I. I will just switch to the Spinx Run Fest half marathon in Greenville, SC where the Hincpaie event also takes place and for which my sister is already signed up! (more on the concurrence of these events later)

As I looked at the course map for this event, (especially the course elevations) I had my doubts about the appropriateness of this particular event for a first time long distance run, but I thought, “Hey, how much harder could it be anyway?” “Why should I be picky about something like this? I am not going to win the thing anyway!” So that is my mindset going into the race. I was nervous about taking on a task so large and nervous about the state of my knee, (see previous post re The Great Shoe Debacle) but generally feeling pretty good about the race. I had some pace goals and felt pretty confident about my ability to make them, assuming my knee cooperated.

Goal #1: Don’t start too fast!

I intended to use the first 3 miles as a sort of warm-up and then give the rest of the race more effort. So I intended to do all three of these at 11:00/mile pace. No problem. My sister took her first walk break after mile 1 so I kept going by myself.

Goal #2 pick up the pace little by little

I actually managed this pretty well for the first little bit. Then at mile 6, my knee started talking to me and I got a little concerned so I slowed down a bit. Mile 8 coincided with the beginning of a pretty intense set of hills. (Read, uphill for 2 miles straight). But this was actually sort of a blessing in disguise because it kind of gave my knee a little break. Or anyway, it must have because after those hills I noticed that my knee wasn’t talking to me anymore. Well, not loudly. So I picked the pace back up. There were some hills in the last 3 miles but I managed them pretty well, considering. In fact, my fastest split was mile 13 at 10:15/mile.

Goal #3 Finish!

I did that in spades. My final time was 2:28 according to the gun time and 2:27:42 by my watch. That is an average pace of 11:12/mile which is very respectable, considering.

What did I learn?

Racing a half marathon – even if it is “ONLY” a half – is a big deal.
It is long enough to be really hard mentally. I still had that mental struggle with myself about ¾ of the way through. I have heard friends who say the same thing about a full and I wonder if it is just that way with any distance. Maybe three fourths of the way through any race you hit a mental wall. “WHY DID I SIGN UP FOR THIS?” “WHAT WAS I THINKING?”

Racing 13.1 miles is a lot different than a training run of the same distance.
Why should this be? It is the same distance. The pace isn’t THAT much different. Or it wasn’t for me anyway. Is it purely mental? In a training run, you are sort of “all in this together” but in a race you are on your own even if you are running with a friend. Or maybe you feel more pressure to get in front of just that person right there. And after passing him or her, you want to pass the next one too.

Running hills just isn’t as hard as I always thought it was.

I can’t tell you how much I hate to say this…. "Thank you Nickajack." There, I said it. The training route I run on Saturday long runs includes a VERY long uphill jaunt at the very end. Almost 2 miles of elevation gain. We ALL complain about it. And don’t get me wrong. It is HARD. But it trained me to be able to get up the hill and more importantly because I am now accustomed to it, to not be AFRAID of the hill.

Two races in one day is not really practical

As I mentioned above, my husband did the HincapieGranFondo in Greenville, SC and had a great (if VERY challenging) experience. Lucky for me, my parents came up and hung out with our two girls but even so, our both doing races on the same day is not something I want to repeat. Not only were the logistics challenging, the recovery was really tough on everyone. Including the kids. They really need at least one parent to be functioning at full capacity! That was not something that I had taken into account.

I really love to run

Who am I? I can assure you that this was not always the case. I wanted to run. I remember trying to run in Health Education Science class at Furman and just not feeling like I could. Nobody ever told me that I could plan to run a little and walk a little and that I could stay slow. That is what finally made me able to get running. And I LOVE it.  I love how strong I feel and that I have used my body in a good way. I wish I could time-travel and tell my younger self what I know now. Of course, that would be true of many many other things as well!