It's the Final Countdown!
One week from yesterday, I will run my first half marathon. It’s finally happening! With six days to go, I thought it would be topical to talk a little bit more about my training, what it’s looked like, and where I’m going to take it after this.
My twelve mile run yesterday had me reflecting back on what I would consider my first long run, which I completed with my younger sister over winter break. I mapped out a 5.2 mile route, but I fibbed a little bit to her and told her it was only four and a half, just a mile over the run we had done a few days before. Five miles just seemed so incredibly unapproachable. The path I’d chosen involved running out to a point and turning around to follow the same roads back, rather than tracing a loop like usual, but we ended up enjoying that as we recognized landmarks from our way out and could easily track our progress as we got more tired on the return. As we got closer to our house, we realized the obstacle ahead: the massive hill leading up to our driveway. We thought about stopping at its base and walking the last quarter of a mile back home from there, calling it a cool down rather than giving up. That’s when I revealed that if we made it back to our mailbox without stopping, we would have run five consecutive miles. “I totally knew it felt longer than four miles so far,” my sister fired back at me. But then, she sped up our pace just a little bit and we pushed towards the top of the hill, not stopping until we tagged the mailbox.
At the beginning, I always motivated myself like this—another week, another mile. My Sunday long run would without fail be the longest run I’d ever done. I couldn’t quit or give up on it because then I wouldn’t have that new record. I say it all the time, but there’s no worse feeling than not finishing a run, so I kept on trekking away from that feeling and into the zone of high endorphins and new personal records. It wasn’t easy, per se, but every week it got easier. My shorter runs during the week to keep up my mileage increased in distance until I was hitting that five mile mark without concern. Five miles became just another part of my routine.
In early February, I hit ten miles for the first time on one of my long runs. Of course, I was ecstatic—but it also seemed too good to be true. I still had six weeks until the race, and I’d been told it wasn’t even necessary to train past the ten mile mark. How would I keep motivating myself by increasing distance when I’d already reached the maximum mileage I’d planned to cover before the race? Forced to find other ways to push myself and improve my running, I decided to work towards four runs a week (including my long run) instead of three, adding to my weekly mileage totals as a new numerical, tangible goal. I did also end up extending my long run reach, eventually covering 12.4 miles as my final training distance run yesterday. Achieving my training goal of ten miles “early” actually ended being the best thing I could’ve done for myself. It gave me time to really intensively train those longer distances and solidify my confidence in my double-digit mileage.
Although I went into this training without a time goal for the race (and I still don’t have one nor do I plan to), I have gotten faster throughout the process. I distinctly recall times during high school or middle school when I would get on the treadmill in my basement, set the speed at six miles per hour, and pause for a break before even that first ten minutes had passed. Even when I started working towards the half marathon in December, I consistently ran slower than ten minute miles even for my shortest three-mile runs, and never would have thought. One half marathon that I looked into had a cutoff time restriction that mandated every runner finish with an average mile time of around thirteen minutes. I decided against that race, worried that I would be too slow. Yesterday, however, I completed an entire twelve mile run averaging 9:51 per mile. While I haven’t run my actual race yet, I have already achieved things I would never have imagined possible for me just a few months ago.
That said, I certainly have not done this by myself or without the support of a fantastic network of family and friends. In my last post, I talked about the community I found over the summer in group training classes that helped me meet my health and fitness goals and lose more than twenty pounds. In terms of running, I have found a similarly supportive and wonderful group of people that propel me further with each run. When I first started running, the ability to do it by myself was one of the reasons I liked it so much. Feeling burned out from the interpersonal competition ever-present on my rowing team, I embraced the solitude and self-motivation that characterized many of my runs. I wasn’t pushing myself for anyone else’s gain, just my own. Nobody was counting on me or expecting anything from me or pressuring me to get faster or better in any way. I was accountable only to myself—and I cherished that.
When I came back to school for the spring semester, however, I ended up doing my long runs with a couple other girls on my rowing team. In that, I found the environment that I had been missing for a while on the team itself—one of genuine pushing each other and supporting each other without the undercurrent of competition that inherently exists in a sport where you’re competing against your teammates for limited seats and coveted boat placements. These long runs reminded me that doing fitness things by myself isn’t the only way to enjoy them. It’s just about finding the right support network for you and fostering mutual relationships that elevate everyone involved.
After running with these women for a few weeks, one weekend came during which our schedules didn’t match up and I ran ten miles for the first time by myself. Although I initially felt unsure about completing that distance on my own, I was able to complete the run and push past any of my original doubts. Yesterday, during our twelve mile run, the three of us relied on each other to keep our group moving as we ran through thick Williamsburg humidity and painfully counted down the last few miles before we reached the Boathouse we row out of, the destination of our run. I’ve been able to show myself that I can do it on my own, but I prefer doing these long runs with my friends. Having their support in pushing through the worst moments of the run makes the great moments that much better as we experience them together. I’m feeling very lucky that the three of us have decided to run the Shamrock Half Marathon this weekend together.
With only six days to go before THE day, this race has been taking up a lot of my headspace. Despite that, I’ve still had some time to think about what I want to do next after I knock out this goal. Training for a half-marathon has whet my appetite for more competitive running opportunities, maybe even to the point of that ultimate goal, the full marathon. 26.2 miles. It seems unfathomable, but then again, so did my current goal of 13.1 when I began working towards it. Before I do that, however, I will definitely be taking some time to perfect the 13.1 distance, and I hope to run a couple more half marathons in this calendar year to work on that. Maybe in the future I’ll set an attainable time goal and work a bit on increasing my speed. I will also need to build up my weekly mileage if I want to seriously train for a marathon. Some of the multitude of internet running blogs out there have suggested that before training for 26.2 miles, you should be comfortable with eight to ten miles as your average, day-to-day run. While I’m not at that point yet (my shorter weekday runs are usually about four or five miles), I think that I can definitely get there. That build is likely what I’ll focus on for the rest of the semester, and then I’ll have the chance to reevaluate my goals again going into the summer.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves—this weekend is the big race! Before I spend too much time considering what comes next, I want to focus on right now and the incredible, challenging, rewarding day that’s surely ahead of me this Sunday. I’ll be sure to update you all with posts [probably an excessive number of them] about the half marathon once it happens!
“Girls run the world [and also 13.1 miles]” – Beyoncé
