Half Marathon in Ten Days

In September, while I was vacationing at Hilton Head Island, I rather casually posted as my Facebook status, “Running half marathon tomorrow.”  What I intended at the time was that I would be running 13.1 miles the following day.  It would have been a nice way to finish off a week of excellent runs.  However, I came up short.  Basically, my intention was to park my car, run 5 miles north along the beach to a river inlet.  I would then turn around, run past my starting point by approximately 1.55 miles, and then return.  Not exactly a classic “out and back,” but close enough.  However, in the execution, I was unwilling to run past my car.  The 13.1 miles was truncated to a 10-mile run. 

It was only days later that I decided to run a marathon.  It became clearer to me on that trip that I needed to set some sort of goal for myself.  What was I running for?  Did I want to get faster?  Did I want to be able to run longer?  How should I measure progress?  The answer to these questions was that I wanted to complete a marathon, the benchmark distance run.  I wasn’t particularly interested in developing speed -- at least not initially.  First things first: finish a marathon.  Train for it & do it.

In retrospect, much of my running journey so far was presaged during that trip.  Why was I unable to finish my 13.1 mile run at the beach?  I would say that there were four factors to my early termination.  First, by the time I got back to the 10-mile mark, I sincerely sought to use a restroom.  To run right past a well-situated facility would have been exceptionally difficult.  This fed in to the second factor: it was quite convenient to stop.  If my run had been 6.55 out and back, I would have had little choice but to complete the run in some manner once I had committed to the first leg.  In my case, especially after using the bathroom, it would have been akin to starting a second run.

Third, since  I was running by myself, I didn’t have any of the good peer pressure to keep me going.  Running in a pack helps you to press on.

But it was really factor number four that got me to head back: I was short-changing my family.  The night before my run was a particularly difficult one.  I don’t exactly remember which kid was keeping us up all night, but I know one of them was.  While I was gone, Julie would have to take care of both kids while being already exhausted herself.  Further, as I recall, she didn’t look to hide her irritation with me.  As with several other times that week, I was off to do my own thing, leaving her very little choice as to how to spend her time.  To make matters worse, this was the longest run of the week, and I wasn’t even starting at the house, so there was travel time to add to time I would be away.  This was, after all, her vacation, too.  Why shouldn’t she be a bit ticked off at me?  I guess I had never previously seen my exercising as being at some cost to anyone other than myself.  Surely, Julie and I hadn’t discussed the sacrifice yet at that point.

I haven’t endeavored a run that long since then.  And I’ve learned that running involves the whole family, in one way or another.

Still, I set out to run a half marathon on a whim, and it was on just such a whim that I signed up for the YMCA of Greenville Resolution Run to take place on the 7^th of January.  My schedule doesn’t have me running a half marathon for another two-and-a-half months.  And indeed, the half marathon is not a distance that particularly interests me.  From what I’ve been able to glean from websites and books, it’s largely a creation of the nomenclature itself (and a recent one at that).   Which sounds more noteworthy: running a “25k,” or running a “half marathon”?  The very word “marathon” attached to something makes it sound more impressive.  Of course, of the two I mention, the 25k is the longer run. 

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the chance to push myself a bit.  I don’t expect to do any better than about 2:40 or more.  I don’t intend to give it my all, since it really is just a whim.  However, it will be a chance to test my endurance, which is, ostensibly, my running goal.  

Indoor Running

A couple of weeks ago, my brother-in-law helped me move my treadmill from upstairs in my house to my garage.  I used to do most of my running at mid-day, and it was nice to come home from work, turn on the TV, and run in front of the tube.  At this point, however, almost all of my runs are in the morning; I’d have to take a really long lunch to get in a good run & shower at mid-day, despite working only a mile from my home.  It is likely that during busy season, I will do exactly that.  Last year I’d get to work at 6:00 AM and then take a long lunch during which I would exercise, and that worked quite well.  In any event, busy season is a couple of months away, and I was looking for a way to get in a good run even on cold, rainy mornings.  I can’t see wanting to do my long weekend runs on a treadmill, but it has been quite nice for my shorter, slower runs during the week.

For one thing, it’s nice not to have to fight hills while keeping my heart rate low.  On the treadmill, I can pretty much just set a pace & leave it there.  About half way through a run, my heart rate starts creeping up, so I adjust the speed downward accordingly.  But apart from the small adjustment, the treadmill makes it easy to choose a heart rate and keep locked on it.

Having the treadmill in the garage has also reinvigorated my long-held, if long past, practice of reading while running.  My running for the last couple of years has tended to be too fast to really be able to read, and it’s also easier to just turn on the TV & zone out when that has been an option.  Taking away the TV, slowing down the pace, and the added benefit of the ease of reading on an iPad has revitalized my reading life.

The thing is, almost all that I have been reading over the past several months has been about running.  Whether it’s directly about running, or about nutrition for runners, or in some other way related to running, that’s been about all I’ve found time to read (other than scripture).  A week or so ago, I was running on the treadmill and reading Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.  If you aren’t familiar with Haruki Murakami, he is probably the most prominent author of contemporary Japanese literature.  What I Talk About… is perhaps his only non-fiction work.  It is brilliant.  I was thoroughly engrossed in his writing.  Here is one of the greatest living novelists writing directly to my interests!

What I Talk About… is basically a memoir.  And as a memoir of a novelist, he talks a great deal about writing novels.  So, there I was, running, reading a book about what a novelist has to say about running.  At some point. . . it just became absurd.  I had pre-ordered (and since received) his long-awaited latest novel 1Q84 and was looking forward to getting around to it.  But it had been a bit daunting.  I don’t read a whole lot of fiction to begin with, because it takes a commitment of time that I’m usually only willing to give to non-fictional information.  Since I don’t read a lot of fiction, it’s a skill that I somewhat lack.  On top of that, 1Q84 is 944 pages, so quite intimidating indeed.  Still, the absurdity of reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running while running was just a bit too much for me.  At some point, I just switched over to the novel.  I am quite grateful that I made the switch.  I had forgotten what a pleasure it is to read while on a treadmill -- how the time necessary to attack a long work is built in to the daily (or near daily) routine.

On the other hand, running on the treadmill more often than not lately, I have become aware just how much I love running on the street when I do so.  Especially running in my Vibram FiveFingers, I love the connectedness that I feel to the ground when I’m on the street.  For years, all I ever knew was treadmill running.  I am thrilled that I took the show on the road last summer.  Road running is fulfilling in a way that little else is.

So is reading novels.

I guess I’ll just have to strike a balance between the two.  Surely, though, I will never again forsake the road.

Big Decision Time

Big decision time: I’ve decided to run a marathon later in 2012.  I will run the Spinx Marathon in Greenville in October rather than the Columbia, SC Marathon in March.  On March 10, I will do a half marathon rather than a full one.

A number of factors went in to this decision.  If you’ve read the entries that I’ve posted in November, you might have seen it coming as well.

Last week was my firm’s annual meeting.  It is the one time during the year that I see a number of friends face to face.  It is a rare chance to catch up with each other and to share what’s new in our lives and our families.  In telling people about my plans to run a marathon in March, it just kept sounding more and more selfish to me.  Friends would ask about how things were going with a toddler and an infant in the house.   I would describe sleepless nights.  But really, the one losing sleep is, by and large, not me.  I don’t think I’m slacking off as a father and a husband, but I do think that I can offer more of myself.  I’d hear myself describing my allocation of time and energy, hear myself explain, indeed accurately, a disproportionate amount of myself being dedicated to running.

I was lamenting along these lines with my boss a couple of weeks ago.  His own father took up running in his thirties, I believe.  As I was telling him how I felt that the time I was spending on my long runs on the weekends was directly at the expense of family time, he said, basically, that I was experiencing exactly the same thing that every runner who has ever dedicated the time to running a marathon has experienced before me -- or at least, every runner with a family.  No doubt, the time that it takes to prepare has to come from somewhere, and one can only reasonably short change oneself just so much on sleep.

That said: I’m still going through with the marathon training and run.  I’m just deferring the 26.2 goal by two-thirds of a year.  So what’s the big deal?  What kind of difference do I expect there to be in training for an October marathon rather than a March one?

There are two big differences between March and seven-and-a-half months later.  First, the big difference is in my work schedule.  From the beginning of February until mid-April, I will be working around 55 hours a week.  In the March marathon scenario, many of my heaviest weeks of training fall during the first six weeks of busy season.  So, while I’ll still need to find long spells of time on weekends to dedicate to my long runs, they won’t have to be during weeks when I’m working six day weeks -- and long days at that.  Yes, training for the half will still take entail long-ish runs on the weekends -- but they won’t be nearly as long.  Also, this will leave the last five weeks of busy season free of any training schedule.  I’m sure I’ll want to keep up regular running in late March and April, but I can do it on my time rather than following the strictures of a training schedule.

The other big difference is that my kids will be just that much older.  Right now, my kids are likely at the neediest times of their lives.  Josiah is two-and-a-half, and so can get into anything he wants to, lacking the self-control to keep himself from trouble.  Chloe is seven months and still does not sleep through the night.  What that means, among other things, is that Julie needs a little extra sleep whenever she can get it.  If I drop both kids on her for a day, that guarantees that no sleep shall be had by the mama.  However, next summer, Josiah will be three and Chloe one.  Hopefully Josiah will be past some watershed in behavior, which will translate to greater independence.  Chloe, presumably, will be sleeping through the night (hopefully well before summer) and will get, at least for a while, progressively easier to care for.

Other little things also favor the October marathon.  Much of my more intense training will now fall in the summer.  I love running in the summer.  I love running on roads, and it’s better to run while it’s light.  I look forward to long, hard runs under the summer sun.

Also, it’ll give me a little extra time to shed a few pounds that would be hard to carry 26.2 miles.  Weight loss has never been much of a goal of mine, but in running, it becomes a little clearer the cost of carrying extra weight.  And I’m not looking to go on any great diet -- just to maybe cut out a few extra calories, with a goal of maybe losing a couple of pounds a month.

All that having been said, I am now very excited about my dual goals of running a marathon in October as well as the half marathon in March.  I’ve never given the half much consideration before, but I think it’ll be exciting.  It will give me extra confidence in the larger goal of running a marathon as well.

I made this decision on Saturday and had a good long run yesterday (Sunday).  It was filled with prayer and joy, even as I ran down an unlit trail well after sunset.  Even in the dark, the world is a brighter place for this change of mind.  I’m excited about busy season coming at work, which is my favorite time of the work year.  The anticipation was marred with a tone of dread.  Now my verve is up.

Bring it on!