I ran my first half-marathon yesterday!!
It’s been a goal of mine for a while. I had hoped to get there sometime this summer, but this works too. It wasn’t an actual race, just a normal run around campus.
The Run
On Saturday (March 4th) I went for a longer run after work, it felt great, so I set a tentative goal to run 11 miles on Wednesday. It’s been about 4 weeks since a ran 10, and my daily runs have been a lot longer the past couple weeks. So, it seemed reasonable to push my personal best.
Yesterday (March 6th) I set out to run a bit further than usual, in order to prepare for the longer run Wednesday. It turned out to be a perfect day for a run, a little chilly, but not enough to be uncomfortable, and the sun was shining. I ran the usual route through Historic St. Mary’s City, past the visitor’s center and onto the trail loop. From my dorm to the trails is about 2 miles, and the loop is roughly 3. I typically run about 5 to 10 minutes into the woods, then turn around for my daily runs. For longer runs, like yesterday, I’ll do the whole loop.
My shoelace was loose, so I stopped tie it before getting into the woods. Then roughly 3 steps past the trail head I dropped an earbud taking off my jacket. I was a little bit peeved having to stop twice, but my time recovered, eventually.
After running a quarter of the trail I was feeling great. It was so, so relaxing running through the woods, and I didn’t feel tired at all. Why not do an extra lap? Maybe I could even get to 11 miles today instead of Wednesday. That got me thinking: What if I ran third? An extra loop would bring me to a 13 miles total, after running back to the dorm. I thought about on it for a bit. Mostly I thought about how great it would be if I could actually do it. I’d tried to work my way up to a half-marathon about year ago, but didn’t make it. I could just check it off the list now. Why not? I was feeling great, it seemed like as good time as any.
The rest of that loop was fantastic, but the second was more difficult. I definitely didn’t drink enough water ahead of time. By the time I started on the third I definitely wasn’t feeling great physically. My feet were achy, I had a stitch in my side and my mouth was really, really dry; But, I was also over half way there! Plus, I was still having a good time. I still had room to think, and I was enjoying the conversation on High and Mighty. After I completed the last loop my watch read something around 11.75 miles. Since the run back to my dorm was almost exactly 2, I ran a quarter mile into the woods before turning around.
Once I turned around every ailment mention cleared up. It felt almost like I had just started the run. I ran the last mile and a half at least a minute faster than any other mile. I was so excited when I finally stopped.
Reflection
I’m trilled just to have run the distance, it was a big leap from next best, 10 miles. Although, I do want to work on the time. I ran 13.24 miles in 2:07:36, so my pace was 9'38"/mi. All the times for miles 3 to 11 were hovering somewhere around 9'30" to 10'00" per mile, with the majority somewhere in 9'45" to 10' range. Part of the reason for the slower pace was because those were the miles on the trail. The trails in Historic St. Mary’s aren’t particularly technical, but I’ve noticed I consistently run a bit slower on them, even on shorter runs. Still, I’d love to bring those mile times down to 9'30". Next goal is to get my time under 2 hours. Eventually.
Thanks for reading! :)