I ran my first race - a half! - this weekend

syk731
syk731 Posts: 34 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I have never considered myself to be a runner. Sure, I've run off and on for most of my adult life, but I've never thought I was a runner, mainly because running is definitely something that doesn't come easily to me. I've never run a race before, even when I've been running well, mainly because I didn't understand why people ran races. I run all the time - why do I need to run a race? I'm obviously not going to win or anything. Why bother going through everything that is involved in running a race?

I started running again last spring when I decided to get serious about losing weight. I hadn't run all winter, so I started in the middle of C25K and quickly finished that and then finished C210K. I looked at some training plans for a half marathon at that point, but didn't want to plan to train for a race, so I just started slowly increasing my mileage on my own. I didn't really follow any particular plan, but I ran at least one long run a week and slowly increased the distance of the long run, ran 1-2 medium runs a week, and the rest shorter runs (5Ks). I just followed what my body was telling me, and I got stuck for a while at 7-8 miles for my long run during the summer, so I was really glad I wasn't training for a race.

The weather's gotten cooler, so a couple of weeks ago, I did a long run of 10 miles, and felt pretty good. Around the same time, I realized that there was a half marathon near me in a few weeks, and I considered signing up, but also wondered whether I was crazy for thinking about it, since I hadn't really trained specifically for a half and heck, I hadn't ever run more than 10 miles before. I looked at one of the novice training plans for a half and realized that I had been running at least that much all summer, if not more (I had been running about 30 miles a week at that point), and the longest long run on that plan was 10 miles, so I figured what the heck, and I'd try it, and I registered for the half.

I was really nervous going in, not knowing anything about races and what to expect. I ran 10 miles once more about 1.5 weeks before the race and then started tapering down. I told myself that my goal was to run at an 11 min/mile pace, since that was the fastest pace I had run 10 miles at, and I just wanted to make it to 13.1 miles at that pace. So I lined up to start the race near the 11 min/mile marker. I felt pretty good, and didn't look at my phone to see what pace I was going at, but decided to just follow what my body was telling me. I knew I was running pretty fast, but I didn't know how fast, but since I felt good, I decided to keep going. The first few miles were tough, as there were quite a few people I ended up having to maneuver around, and it turns out that my first 3 miles were my slowest t miles of the race because I lined up too far in the back.

The adrenaline must have really just kicked in, because I finished the race at 2:04, which is a 9:30 min/mile pace - which is faster than pretty much any run I have run before, including the days I just run 5ks to train. I was truly amazed at myself because I really just had no idea my body could do that.

I feel like maybe I am a runner now. I can't believe that I did it, and so much faster than I would have even believed was possible. I now see why people run races. I'm even thinking about doing another one at some point, and even thinking about training for a marathon. Maybe. I have always thought that I would never be able to run a marathon, but quite honestly, I never thought I would be able to run a half either. So maybe I can do it, some day.

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