It has been a while since my last blog post. I am not sure what happened. I suppose I got busy and forgot about running for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I kept it up when I could but the passion was lost somewhere. Now that I am registered for the November 7 New York City Marathon I have found it again and am channeling it towards this event.
So where have I been and how did I get lost? I was super psyched in March to run a fast half marathon and was hoping to do that at Angies Crazy Half, but I got sick. I got pretty sick and ended up in hospital on a drip. The doctors said that it was some sort of virus and that I had it pretty bad. It resulted with me not eating for a week and trying to drink more than one bottle of Gatorade a day and keep my medicine down. After a week I was up to eating food but was pretty week and tired constantly. All up it took 6 week for me to get back to feeling normal. At this stage, even though I was eating I was still 15 pounds under my normal weight. This was two weeks before the Half!
I had a friend that I had been training up to run Angies. It was going to be her first Half Marathon. The week that I was back to feeling sort of like normal, she asked me if I could come and run her long run with her. 10 miles! I told her that as long as we took it easy and slow that I would try to get her over that hurdle, and at the same time face my demons and attempt a hurdle of my own. I had no idea if I could come back after 6 weeks of convalescence and run that far. I wanted to try, I wanted to see if I could even be up to running Angies.
We made it through the training run. Her fitness had improved and she was running a good constant pace. Although she was worried about adding an additional 3 miles to that run for the race, she was happy that her 3 months training was coming to an end and that race day was just around the corner. For me though… well I was disappointed as before I got sick I was running some good times and distances. My new goal was to run Angies, try to finish and to have fun.
Race Day – it was gearing up to be a hot and humid day. I was in the first wave to start and met up with a fellow twitter and dailymile runner (@turtlescanrun) at the start. She was aiming for a PB running sub 8’s (she is fast!). Me – well, I just wanted to finish injury free and not embarrass myself too much. I knew it would be a struggle and although I was coming into this race with no expectations other than to hope to finish, I knew in the back of my mind that was a part of me that wanted to try to run a sub 2 hour race. Silly, hey?
The first 9 miles of the race were run at a 8.40 min per mile pace. I kept looking at my garmin and calculating how many minutes under a 2 hour finish time I was at and working out how much time I had up my sleeve after I hit the wall (cause I knew I was going to hit it!) to continue and finish in around 2 hours. I said that I was silly, didn’t I? The wall came at the 9th mile. It was hard and it was big! By this stage the sun was up, the humidity and heat were up. It was disastrous. I was dead on my feet, dehydrated and exhausted!
I managed to walk run the final miles and finished in 2.06. Not my fastest half marathon, but also not my slowest. I think I was silly to race it. I knew better – I was meant to be having fun. I was coming back from being out for 6 weeks. Silly me! I suppose it is just that the official motto for the race was “suck it up cupcake!”.
Good news was that my friend who I had been training finished her first ever half marathon in 2.15! I told her that was awesome. Her family was so proud that they have framed one of her race photos and it is sitting on the fireplace at their house with the medal draped over it! Awesome!
The next bit of exciting news is that I am now a certified RRCA running coach! Yep that’s right, I did my coaching course in June and recently passed my final test! It was a great course, and I was so lucky to not only attend but also get to participate with some great athletes and trainers! My first task as a new coach is to get me ready for the New York Marathon!
But I suppose nothing worthwhile was meant to be easy…… well, that is what I keep telling myself.
