Last year, my daughter Aisling began running cross country for her high school team. She did well, and decided she wanted to run a half marathon. I agreed to do one with her, so in December we signed up for the American River Parkway Half Marathon.
We planned to start training in January, but then Aisling joined her track team, and naturally, the track coach doesn't want them doing road races during the season as it increases the risk of injury. So I started training by myself in January. I had always run short distances two to three times per week, I simply added a long run on the weekend to that. My long run actually started out pretty short - my first one being only 45 minutes - and I just increased it over the course of several months. A couple of things really worked to my advantage during training. First, I live very close to the American River Parkway and Lake Natoma, great places to run. The second thing that helped was my furlough days. It was so much easier to schedule a long run on a furlough day than a weekend day, just logistically. I increased my time and distance a little with each long run. Sometimes I felt really good with the increase, but some of the long runs were really hard. I remember the first time I ran 10 miles, I actually thought I was going to cry at the end. On the other hand, two weeks ago, I ran 12.5 miles, and felt really pretty good.
Yesterday was the big day. I arrived at the starting line at William Pond Park at the starting time of 8. We didn't actually get started until about 8:30, however. The race started with a Scottish band, with bagpipes and drums, marching across the starting line. It was great! It was also really crowded - about 3,000 people in all. The course was lovely, along the river, nice and flat. There were bands all along the way serenading us, and plenty of water/gatorade stations. I started out well, and as I hit the miles markers, I was feeling pretty good, all the way up until about mile 10. Then it started to get really hard! The mile markers seemed to be further apart at that point. So I would guess that I walked about .75 of the last 3 miles. Once I passed the 12 mile marker, there were many of the people who had already finished the race lined up yelling encouragement. So I pushed on and finally made it across the finish line. My time was 2:23:44. I had been aiming for under 2:30, so I was very satisfied. I did sort of feel like I was so tired and sore that I was about to cry! But instead of crying, I just went home and showered, that made me feel much better. I spent the rest of the day drinking probably gallons of water!
So will I do it again? I don't know - the length is hard. 10 miles felt okay, but 13 felt painful. So ask me again in a couple of weeks when the memory of the pain is gone!
Gordon & Helen in Crete
