Half Marathon

I did it! On December 7th I ran a half marathon in Las Vegas! After a year of getting into running events, my good friend Rabiah challenged me to run a half marathon.

I trained for about 3 months based on a routine put together by a personal trainer at my gym. It incorporated a good mix of running (long runs, hills, intervals, etc.) with resistance work. Towards the end, as the runs became longer, it became decidedly more focused on running.

Before the training, the longest I had run was 5 miles. I had always been told by runners that if you can run two miles, you can run three. And if you can run three miles, you can run four. etc. As someone who has always felt like dying after about two, that never made sense to me. Over the course of the training, it became clear. It seems like there are plateaus of pain involved with running. After about a half of a mile the freshness of running runs out and you realize you are actually working out and it hurts. Maybe after about a mile you get used to it. Then, maybe a quarter mile later, it really begins to hurt and you want to quit. But if you stick with it you'll get used to it. I've found that you go through about one more wave of pain from here. At this point, the pain doesn't go away, but you get used to it again and figure that if you've been running with the pain, there's no point in stopping because you have already learned to deal with it. Shortly thereafter, you're fully broken in. Now, you've just got to keep yourself motivated yet distracted about how far you have to go.

The actual event was quite amazing. This definitely turned me on to the idea of athletic vacations. The turnout was HUGE. People had flown in from around the world to participate. When you register, you get funneled into this expo center where they sell you anything imaginable that could make running easier. Water with electrolytes, belts that hold water bottles, sunglasses with built in ipod connections, massages, energy bars. You name it, they've got it.

The race began at 6 a.m. It was still dark when we began running. Since it was so early, the city was actually able to shut down the strip while we ran. The route started at the Mandalay Bay Casino, ran all the way down the strip, somewhat off into the older sections of the city and back. Some of the serious runners (or, I guess not so serious depending on how you see it) ran the race dressed as Elvis. Fitting for Vegas. Also fitting was at mile 5, there was lane where you could do a 'run thru wedding'. Yes a couple got married during the race. And yes, I ran my fastest time to get out of mile 5.

Mile four was my slowest mile. Nature called and I have to stop and use a port-o-potty. Worse was that there was a line. Usually after a couple of miles, people sort of filter out into groups that maintain similar paces. I'm pretty slow. So when I returned to the race, I was surrounded by walkers. For once, I was passing everybody! I guess a lot of people ended up taking a break because by the end of the race, I ended up with a lot of the same people I was running with earlier.

Strangely, the hardest run I did during my training was a 9 mile run. I was just getting over a cold and the run took everything out of me. After that, the 11 miler and the half marathon were hard, but not devastating. Also strange was that, despite never running together, Rabiah and I had a very similar pace. I caught up with her around mile nine and our final times were 1 second apart.

A great thing about running so early was that I made it back to the hotel in time to watch the early NFL games. After that long of a run, what could be better than laying in bed and watch my Bears beat the Jaguars.