Maybe there’s something to that “training” business…

Last weekend, I did something silly-but perfectly in character. I whined and moaned a few months ago about my stress fracture and how it was wrecking my life. Well, once the denial and bargaining stages of runner grief subsided, I went on about my acceptance. I found another way to keep me relatively fit without trying to grind my bones into powder 30 miles per week. I got into a new routine. I FORGOT about running. A friend graciously offered to use my entry into the first ever “Good Life Halfsy” and run/walk that thing like a boss. Until…

We realized she’d be out of town that weekend. No big deal, I signed up, I got injured, I bow out. Right? Happens to people all the time. Except…not everyone is such a lethal combination of thrifty and stubborn as I am. The thought of wasting my entry fee and NOT torturing myself for a few hours when I knew thousands of other people were was just too much temptation. I gave in. Decided I’d just go “see what happens”. And so…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btm4qkCnPJE&feature=youtu.be

I “ran my halfsy off”. And the result? A time of 1:58:39. This was 8 seconds slower than the first half I’d ever run-and I TRAINED for that thing. I was so ridiculously proud of this time, I can’t even tell you. I thought the whole time that if I kept up my average 9 minute pace, I’d be able to come in under 2 hours, which was my secret goal. Of course, that doesn’t really line up with “see what happens”, but I never do stuff halfway (except, of course, that this is a half marathon and thus the definition of halfway). After the first few miles, I figured I had a shot. And then…the second half of the race. I have never been more miserable in all my life. This hurt more than my half iron man. That was just a really long day. This was some form of ancient torture. My quads, OH my quads! At each mile marker after 8, I thought I’d just try to hit “one more mile” and then I’d walk. and then around mile 10, everything was hurting, I wanted to give up…and I saw a friend. Running. He yelled out, and I realized I didn’t want him to pass me by as I walked to the end. So I just. kept. going. My pace ended at a last mile of 9:30 but I didn’t stop. Almost fell down at the end once I started walking past the finish, but I did it!

And the rest of the day was pain. Stairs sucked. Sitting down sucked. Getting up sucked. But you know what didn’t suck? Being able to say “yeah, I ran a half marathon after not running at all for 2 months. No big deal”. Pride is a powerful motivator. But now I’m back to being able to walk normal, and the stress fracture didn’t hurt at all during the race, so I may actually start running a few times a week again-even though I’m pretty sure treadmill running got me this injury, and at a current temp of around 20 degrees it’s the only halfway desirable option. Guess we’ll just “see what happens”!