Andy Gapin

I’ve been meaning to write about this all week, but I’m just now finally getting to it. Sigh.

Last weekend, my wife and I ran the RU Unite Half Marathon at Rutgers. Not only was this my fifth half marathon, but I also got to take home a brand new personal record! Pretty exciting!

Despite the fact that last year’s Unite Half Marathon was kind of a dud because of some course flooding that ended up shortening the race to just 9.55 miles, I’m a big fan of the Unite Half Marathon. It’s right in our backyard in Central Jersey—the start is just ten minutes from our house—and it does a nice little tour of three of the four campuses of Rutgers New Brunswick, which just so happens to be where I went to college. On top of that, since my wife and I have run the race all three years that they’ve had it, I’m drawn to keep doing it so we can say we’ve been a part of it since the beginning.

If you had asked me a couple of months ago what time I was looking at running for this race, you would have gotten a crazy response of around 1:27:00. At the time, I was focused on trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon in early June at the San Diego Rock’n'Roll Marathon so this race was going to basically serve as a tempo run for me. It was going to be a mid-training check-in to see where I was at. A 1:27 half marathon represented exactly where I needed to be to have a shot at a Boston qualification. Unfortunately, since then, I ran (no pun intended) into a few minor setbacks. I lost close to a week of training with some plantar fasciitis-like symptoms in my foot. Then right after that, I lost almost two weeks to some weird knee pain. After both of those, I knew that qualifying for Boston in June was going to be out and I decided to not even run the San Diego Rock’n'Roll Marathon at all. Luckily, I hadn’t signed up yet and it wasn’t a big deal. I knew this would also take its toll on my half marathon time for Rutgers as well, but I was okay with that. I figured I’d drop my hopes down and just shoot for the low 1:30s instead.

In the two weeks leading up to the race, I was having some soreness in both my calves the day after every run, even easy four-milers, and, eventually, I think this led to some more pain in the arches of my feet. I took the five days before the race off completely and prepped myself mentally for the fact that the race may not go so well for me.

On the morning of the race, I was feeling pretty good physically. My wife and I parked near the finish-line and walked the roughly one-mile distance to the starting line on Busch Campus. We hit the porta-potties and I did my warm-up routine while waiting in line, leaving us with just enough time before the race to make our way into the corral without having to wait long for the race to start. My wife seeded herself right behind the eight minute/mile pacer and I moved up to right behind the seven minute/mile pacer. A couple months ago, I was looking to run this race just under a 6:40 minute/mile, but I knew that I didn’t stand a chance at making it the whole way at a sub-seven minute pace anymore.

I kept with the seven-minute pacer for the first half the race, but I knew right from the start that I wasn’t going to be able to hang for the whole thing. It wasn’t my day and I didn’t expect it to be. However, knowing that I’m now an experienced and strong enough runner that 13.1 miles isn’t too much of a big deal and, even if I start out a little too fast early on, I can push through later in the race, I figured I’d hang out with the seven-minute group for a while. At about six miles, as the group was coming through a water station, I felt like it was a good time to back it off just a little. I slowed myself down just a little, but not too much that the group disappeared out of my sights. For the next three or so miles, they weren’t too far ahead of me which left me feeling like I wasn’t losing too much time and kept me motivated.

By miles nine and ten, I was really starting to get tired, but again, being a more experienced runner than I was for my first half marathon, just a mere two years ago (it was actually this same race!), I wasn’t that worried. I knew I could still stay pretty strong through the rest of it. These two miles, I spent running with a guy that I happened to strike up a conversation with. He was shooting for a time just a little slower than what I was looking for, but we had a good conversation going so I stuck with him for a little while. Unfortunately, during this time, I watched the seven-minute mile group get further and further away from me.

As we passed the eleventh mile marker, I knew I had to pick it back up a bit if I wanted to PR. I thanked my new friend for the conversation and encouragement and started to push a little more. I couldn’t pick it up too much though as I started to get that “if I run any faster I’m going to puke” feeling that happens sometimes in races.

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but the course was a little different this year, but the one change that really mattered was the finish line. In previous years, the finish line was just after a sharp left turn. This year, it was right on College Avenue and the last almost half mile was a straight shot to finish line. It was much nicer and didn’t interfere with that final push. Definitely a good decision by the race organizers.

Once the clock was in sight, I knew I was good and would be coming home with a new PR. It wasn’t much, but a PR is a PR and I was psyched. I crossed at 1:32:25 (chip time, gun/clock time was 1:32:33) and was pretty damn happy about it. My sixteen month standing PR was finally beaten, by just 40 seconds.

Now, my wife, let’s take a minute and talk about this craziness. She also got a PR, but a much more insane one. Coming into the race, her best half marathon time was 2:02:15 from her very first half marathon ever. She knew she was going to do better and was focusing on just getting under two hours, despite me telling her that, with the way she’d been running lately, under 1:50 should be doable. Well, I’m really happy to be able to say that I was right and she absolutely demolished her previous PR. She came in at an amazing 1:47:43!! She knocked fifteen minutes off! Wow!

One half marathon, one marathon, two days, four Disney parks, 39.3 miles, three medals, three shirts. It’s called the Goofy Challenge. It’s not for everyone and it’s certainly not for people who don’t like running.

If you had asked me a year and a few days ago if I thought I’d ever run a marathon and a half marathon in the same weekend, there’s no way you would have gotten a yes out of me. No way. I wouldn’t have even giving you a yes for running a marathon by itself. But, last year, my wife and I ran the Disney World Half Marathon and spent the rest of our trip in Disney seeing plenty of other people walking around with three medals around their necks, I call them “clankers.” It was at that point that we realized if they could do it, we could do it. It took months and some going back and forth before we finally committed and signed up for the Goofy Challenge, but we went for it.

Now, my wife and I aren’t always the smartest people in the world. We hadn’t run a full marathon at the time and were currently beginning our training for the Philadelphia Marathon, which fell just a month and a half before the Goofy Challenge. That’s not a lot of time to recover from your first marathon and then up the training for an even bigger challenge. But we signed up and booked a trip to Disney, we had to do it…or at least try.

Training didn’t go as well as it could of, in fact, between Philly and Disney, the longest run either of us did was 16 miles. Things could have been worse, but I really didn’t feel like either of us had built up enough stamina for the challenge. Time was hard to come by and the tendinitis that used to be in my left ankle had moved over to my right one, not to mention the fact that my knees hadn’t felt right since Philly. And to top off the fact that we had signed up to run 39.3 miles in one weekend, we also had to have enough left in our legs to walk around Disney for a few days and enjoy a “vacation.”

However, for as stupid as we were in signing up for this thing in the first place, we were smart in setting our goals. This was just for the sake of doing it. We weren’t going to try to run for time and we were going to run both races together. My wife and I don’t normally run races together, so this was going to be new for both of us, but we figured we could help each other through.

Half Marathon

The plan for the half marathon was to take things super slow and just get to the finish without working our legs too much. By this point, we’ve had a few half marathons under our belts and having just spent the last six months training for a marathon, 13.1 miles wasn’t worrisome at all. Plus, we knew the course from last year. Our biggest worry was just trying to keep ourselves slow. Very slow.

We woke up at 2:45am and got ourselves ready and out the door to catch the bus over to the start area. The weather was chilly, and still getting colder, but we knew it would be like this from last year. As we made our way over to our starting corral, we tried to prepare ourselves mentally for what we were about to start. We had no idea how our bodies were going to respond to such a goofy challenge.

The race kicked off with a blast of fireworks and we were on our way, trying to keep a slow pace. The start was very crowded and trying to find our own space to run wasn’t easy. On top of that, I had to pee right off the bat. I stopped at a porta potty and told my wife to continue without me, I’d catch up. This seemed like the longest pee of my life as I stood there thinking about how much extra energy I was going to burn trying to catch up to my wife. As soon as I was done, I sprinted down the course to catch up to my wife. The people around must have thought I was an idiot running that fast that early in the race, but since I’m used to running a half marathon at a pace three or four minutes per mile faster than we were planning on doing, it wasn’t a problem for me to run at my normal pace to catch up. In fact, my legs loved it, they wanted to keep it up, but I didn’t give in. I caught up to my wife and we continued on our way.

From there, we spent most of the race just trying to slow ourselves down. No matter how much we tried, our pace kept creeping faster and we’d have to make a strong effort to slow ourselves. down. The worst area of the course for this, without a doubt, was Magic Kingdom. This is the most exciting part of the course. There’s a ton of energy as you come down Main Street, through Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, and through Cinderella’s Castle. We picked up a little speed, but for the most part we were able to keep it under control.

After Magic Kingdom, the half marathon course gets pretty boring for a while. You run down a back street and a highway for a while as you make your way back to Epcot. We lost a few minutes when my wife needed to take a quick bathroom break in one of the porta potties, but she was quick. As we made our way into Epcot for the last mile, things felt pretty good. Once the finish line was in site, we grabbed hands and crossed together at 2:15:54. Almost a minute per mile slower than my wife’s slowest time, so we were both feeling pretty good and knew we hadn’t burned up too much energy or stamina.

Marathon

The marathon, the biggie. With just one marathon under our belts, we didn’t know how we were going to hold up through 26.2 miles after having put 13.1 miles on our legs just 24 hours prior. Again, we got up around 3am to make our way over to the starting area. The temperature was a little bit warmer feeling, but not by much. We sat for a few minutes in the corral to rest our legs while other runners were stretching and warming up. Saving the energy seemed more important than anything else at this point. Since I moved back to start in the C corral (there were eight total corrals) with my wife, we had a bit of a walk anyway when it was time for our corral to move up to starting line so that served as our warm up.

This time when the race started, we tried to take it even easier. We were on the other side of the road this time which had a little more room on it. I, again, had to stop and pee within the first mile, but this time I didn’t use a porta potty, I just ran off into the woods. Unlike for the half marathon, I didn’t burn energy sprinting back up to my wife. I picked up my pace a little and just slowly and steadily caught back up to her.

The marathon course quickly differentiates itself from the half marathon by taking runners right into Epcot after just a couple miles. At this point, my wife needed to make her first bathroom stop. There was a bit of a line this time, but again, she was quick in there and we were on our way having only lost a few minutes.

We entered the park at the front and ran around Spaceship Earth with the course separating into two halves, allowing runners to go down either side. From there, the course makes a left turn into the World Showcase and exits down a back road just after passing Mexico. After exiting around the back, the course loops back around near the starting line, which was already halfway broken down, and heads towards Magic Kingdom on the same roads the half marathon comes back on. Instead of going to the right of the Speedyway, though, the full marathon took us along the left. This section, between Epcot and Magic Kingdom, is a bit boring, but Disney tries to keep an ample amount of entertainment going on the sides of the course.

At this point, we had hit the halfway point for the Goofy Challenge. All downhill from here, or so I tried to reason.

As we made our way towards Magic Kingdom, we were feeling okay, but weary about the big distance between Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. But for now, we had a good pace going and were just a bit faster than we wanted to be. I feared that coming down Main Street in Magic Kingdom would pick us up a bit more than we wanted, but that was still a couple miles away.

As we made our way towards Magic Kingdom, the course eventually merged back with where the half marathon had taken us through the park. We entered down Main Street and did our best to keep things steady and find our space to run in the massive crowd of runners that bottleneck coming through the park. After following through Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Cinderella’s Castle, Liberty Square, and Frontierland, we made our way out of the park to the left of Splash Mountain. We escaped without picking up our pace and burning excess energy.

This was the part we dreaded, probably even more than the part of the race after mile 20. This was the start of the roughly six mile trek to Animal Kingdom. This portion of the course doesn’t have much to see other than the few characters Disney had out to take photos with. By the time we hit the marathon halfway point, I was feeling good, but my wife was starting to fatigue. I tried encouraging her as much as I could, but as we kept getting closer to Animal Kingdom, she kept getting more and more worried. As we came along miles 14 and 15, I started to feel some fatigue in my legs, but things were still manageable.

As we started to get closer to Animal Kingdom, some of the animals were out on the side of the course and this started off the boost that we needed from the park. Once we made our way into the park, the energy grew and carried us through Asia and DinoLand USA to the front of the park.

Three parks done and I was actually feeling pretty monster now.

We just had a few miles to go until Hollywood Studios. As we curved around the Animal Kingdom bus stops, we hit mile 17 and then 18 came quickly. By this time in Philly, I was fatiguing hard and working out my strategy to make it to the finish line. I was weighing the best time to drop off from the pacer I was running with and that time happened by mile 18.5. But things were different this time, my legs felt great and I had energy, lots of it. I knew we were approaching the point in the race where things can fall apart in the blink of an eye, but I knew I was feeling good now and that was all that mattered. I don’t know what the time was at this point, but I’m pretty sure by now I had been running for longer (time-wise) than I ever had in my life.

Unfortunately, my wife was not in the same kind of shape I was in. Since running with her is already a much slower pace for me, I wasn’t putting my body through as much, but we were only running a little slower than she’s used to for a long race like this so it was much harder on her body. These were dark times for her. She had a blister on her toe pop that nearly took her down. She screamed in pain and seemed like she was about to throw in the towel. I’ve never seen her in pain like that before, but she soldiered on as I did my best to reassure her that she could and would make it. Still, I could tell that she was tiring quickly. I had been gulping down energy gels and sport beans for the last five miles, but she didn’t want them. By now, I knew she needed something so I convinced her to eat the chocolate gel she had in her SPI belt. With eight more miles to go, I knew it would kick in when she really needed it.

Unfortunately, the temperature was rising quickly now. We had been taking water at almost every stop since the halfway point so we were hydrated enough, but we were starting to feel the effect of the sun on us.

Mile 21 got a bit rough for my wife and she started feeling the need for another bathroom stop. We, luckily, weren’t far from a porta potty and she was able to stop. Now, she was really fighting to keep things going, but once she was able to hit the bathroom, things started to pick up a little for her.

As we turned into Hollywood Studios, we hit the 22nd mile marker, which pretty much marked the homestretch. From now on, the rest of the course was lined with people, no more dead zones.

There was a huge burst of energy as we entered into the park. Both of us sucked this energy in and picked things up massively. We dropped from around an 11:10 mile to closer to an 8:30-9 minute mile. The combination of the bathroom break, the energy gel finally kicking in, and all the energy from the park transformed my wife from struggling to keep it going all to a running machine. She looked fresh, like she had just started the race. As we made our way through Hollywood Studios, we started passing other runners like nobody’s business. Runners that had been near us all race or had passed us a while back quickly ended up behind us.

We both were feeling great and reaping the reward for keeping things so slow in the 35 miles behind us. Hollywood Studios was over in a flash. We entered in the back of the park and ran through part of the Backlot Tour, down Streets of America, up Commissary Lane, and turned right onto Hollywood Boulevard towards the front of the park. After exiting the park, we made the sharp left to head down along the river to the Boardwalk Resort. Again, tons of people lining the side of the course. Things got tight here, but we squeezed our way through.

As we made our way onto the Boardwalk, we had tons of momentum and we were flying as we passed the marker for mile 24. We were almost there and nothing was going to stop us now.

We followed the course back into Epcot by the UK pavilion. All that was left was a lap around the World Showcase and then to make our way to the front of the park. The counties were flying by us and it felt like we were running on fresh legs. By the time we exited into Future World, we’d passed hundreds of runners since marker for mile 22. It was like we were fast-forwarding the end of the race.

Finally, after wrapping around Spaceship Earth again, we could see the finish line. We stopped passing people, grabbed hands, and made our way across the line at 4:58:16. We were only 21 minutes slower than my wife’s time in Philly and considering we had run a half marathon the day before and stopped for two bathroom breaks, that’s not bad.

Overall stuff

The Goofy Challenge sounds intense. And it is, it’s a lot of miles, but what I learned this weekend is that if you take it easy, really easy, you can do it. And you can still enjoy a vacation after doing it. Of all the long races I’ve done (1 marathon and 3 half marathons before this), I felt the best after this. My legs weren’t very sore and my ankles didn’t hurt. I could walk pretty well. My biggest issue after finishing was just that my feet were sore (that continued for two days). Other than that, I really felt great. Even my ankles, which have been constant problems for me for almost a year and a half now, were completely fine. I did some preemptive icing on them right after finishing, but they never started to hurt.

Throughout the course of the rest of the day and trip, I really didn’t feel like I had just run a marathon and a half. I was impressed with us.

For me, the biggest change from any other races I’ve run is just the difference in running at a slower pace. It’s a really different experience. At a 10-11 minute mile, the course is much more crowded. Things only cleared out so much for us throughout the entire 39.3 miles. At any given point, there were always a few people within a 10 foot radius. At a 7-8 minute pace, races are much different, they clear out. Unless you have someone running with you, you’re much more alone, with the nearest people 15-20 feet away from you. There’s also a lot more conversation from the people around when you’re running slower. Maybe it’s because more people run with friends at that pace, but there were groups of people all over the place that seemed to be running together. At this pace, water stops are a complete mess, there are people and cups everywhere.

Additionally, running at a slower pace gives you time to enjoy the course. I’m used to flying through courses as fast as I can while focusing on breathing properly, keeping an eye on the condition of my body, and keeping myself right at the upper limit of a sustainable pace. I don’t normally notice much going on around me aside from what I need to in order to protect my safety. At an 11-minute mile, I was taking in all the things Disney had on the sides of the course. There were dozens of characters out, marching bands, etc. I even got to enjoy the parks in a different way.

I find the Marathon Weekend events to be a great experience from beginning to end. The races are fun and the courses are unlike any other courses you’ll ever run. Not to mention the fact that, despite the races starting at 5:40am, they’re very well organized. The Goofy Challenge is definitely something I want to do again, but I think I’d also throw in the 5k as well. I don’t know if my wife and I want to make a trip down next year for our fourth January Disney trip in a row, but it’s the 20th anniversary of the marathon, so I’d really like to. If she does both races again, I think I’d do them with her again, but if she decides not to do Goofy again, I might try running for a time. Maybe both races in under five hours combined.

The biggest downside to doing something like Goofy is if you’re trying to also do a full trip to the parks as well. You lose a lot of time because of the races. You have to get to bed before the parks even close on both nights and by the time you’re showered and ready to hit the parks after each race, you’ve lost a good portion of your day, especially after the marathon. We thought we could do four days in the parks, including the race days, but we really felt pressed for time. In the end, we did all the highlights and the things we wanted, but adding an extra day would have made the trip more enjoyable as a whole.

Now what

Now, with the Goofy Challenge done and two marathons under my belt, what are my goals? First thing I’m doing is taking a couple weeks off to rest my ankles. They don’t hurt now, but I want to make sure they’re in decent shape. After that, it’s time to start training again. I’ve got the RU Unite Half Marathon at Rutgers in April, but as long as training goes well, I’ll be doing another marathon after that. I’m looking to qualify for Boston in the Spring so I can run next year. It’s going to mean a lot of training, but as long as my ankles feel good in two weeks, I won’t have lost much from where I am right now. If training is going well, I’m going to shoot for a time closer to 1:25:00 at the half marathon and a marathon for May or June.

Running the Boston Marathon is my main goal right now, but after I qualify for that, my next goal is to get under three hours. Since I have to run under 3:05:00 to qualify for Boston, getting under three hours, at that point, should be attainable. You’d think.

UPDATE: My wife posted her recap as well.

Today was my third official half marathon. It should have been my fourth, but last month’s RU Unite Half Marathon was an abbreviated course due to some flooding. Actually, the shortening of that course was the reason for signing up for today’s race in the first place, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.

If you looked outside at all today, you would know how gloomy the weather was around here. Luckily, during the race, there wasn’t much active rain, just a constant misting. Though, to be honest, I don’t think I would have minded some rain. I was hot and sweaty anyway so it probably would have just felt good. Besides, the course was already completely soaked as it had been pouring overnight. More rain probably wouldn’t have hurt much.

The Superhero Half Marathon is run through a double loop course in Morristown, NJ and is in its second year. The race is a rather low-budget affair, but is still organized well-enough that that actually becomes a bit of it’s charm. The race is open to both individual runners and two person relay teams.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from myself. My ankle still isn’t 100%, though it’s getting close, and I wasn’t as trained as I would have liked. My training pace has been considerably slower than where I was six months ago, but my speed, stamina, and power are starting to come back a bit. Slowly. My goal for today was simply to beat my first half marathon time (1:47:11) by a couple minutes and finish under 1:45. I figured that shouldn’t be too hard.

I started off the race right near the front, but I didn’t take off nearly as quickly as most of the other people near me. I didn’t really think about this beforehand, but one of the weird things about running a race that also has a relay is that the relay runners just kind of take off since they don’t need to conserve much energy. This threw me off a slight bit as I was looking around at people passing me when I felt I was keeping a decent pace.

Pacing myself was actually a bit interesting because I ran without my iPhone. This is not something I’m used to at all. I always run with music and RunKeeper to keep track of my pace. I can deal without the music because I generally tune it out while running, but I’m still terrible at pacing myself so I rely on RunKeeper as a crutch to let me know where I’m at. However, with the wet weather and the likelihood of more rain, I didn’t want to have my phone strapped to my arm so I decided to just run without it. Early on, this was a bit weird, but I very quickly grew to appreciate running with just me and the course and nothing else. I didn’t have RunKeeper chiming in my ear and telling me some pace that would have just cause me to feel like I was either running too slowly or was way ahead of my target and therefore could ease up. The course itself didn’t have any clocks anywhere so when I finished, I really had absolutely no idea what the time was going to be. I had about a 10 minute window in my head of what to expect. But I really did like this. I was able to just run and adjust my pace solely on how I was feeling and not based around the clock. To be honest, I think this helped.

The course is interesting because it’s two laps around a big 6.7 mile loop (the second lap is 6.4 miles as the finish line isn’t exactly at the start line). This is kind of a double-edged sword. It’s cool because when you start the second lap, you know what to expect. You know the course ahead and you can use this to your advantage. However, it’s also a little boring in the second lap because there isn’t new scenery to look at and you sort of dread certain uphill sections of the course for the second time around.

The course is billed as being fast and flat, but I felt like it was anything but that. Somehow the course felt as though it defied physics and the entire loop was uphill. It was like running in an Escher painting. It just didn’t make sense. Hills are an interesting thing because I destroy short steep hills and actually pick up speed on them, but longer, more drawn out hills completely kill me. The course had mix of these so some were easier to handle than others.

Overall, I had a love/hate relationship with the course, but I would definitely run it again.

Early in the race, I didn’t feel great. I started fatiguing very early and started to dread the miles ahead. By the time I got through the first 5k, I was not feeling good at all. But somewhere after that, I picked it up and got a boost of energy. I ran the middle of the race strong and I even stayed strong through most of the second half. I think I actually felt better later in the race than I did early on. Still, I was glad to see the finish line when I got there.

When I finally got close enough to see the clock at the finish line, this was the first indication of my time or pace that I had all race. I was expecting somewhere in the low 1:40s, but I was elated to see that I was actually at 1:37. I hauled ass to the finish line and finished in an all out sprint at a very respectable 1:37:14 (79 out of 1160 finishers). To be honest, I’m extremely happy with this time. It’s more than four minutes slower than personal record from Disney and at 7:25 minute/mile, my pace was actually just slower than my training pace was for Disney. Still, given the injury problems and everything there is to take into account, today was a very good day for me. I couldn’t be happier, I mean, come on, I was just looking to run 1:45.

So now that this race is finished, I’m going to take a couple weeks to let my ankle finish healing and then it’s time to start training for the Philly marathon. I’ve got a nice long training program laid out so I can try to run it strong. Exciting!

Vibram Five Finger KSO total mileage: 420.26

Yesterday, I set out for what was to be my third half marathon over the course of 364 days. I wish I could say that I actually ran 13.1 miles though. Unfortunately, due to some pretty torrential downpours on Saturday, one of the parks that the race runs through was flooded. Thanks to this flooding, the course had to be adjusted to just 9.55 miles.

While I only had a month to train for this race after two months off from tendinitis that I’m still not fully recovered from, I really wanted to run the full half marathon. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from my body given the circumstances, but I was hoping to at least repeat my 1:47:11 from the same race last year. The RU Unite Half Marathon last year was first half marathon ever and even though I said I didn’t think I’d do it again after that, I’m now addicted. Three months ago, I ran my second half marathon, the Disney Half Marathon, and pulled off an incredible time of 1:33:05 that I’m still extremely proud of…especially considering that I ran in pain. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to touch that time yesterday, but I did feel good enough to at least know that my time from last year was doable again.

Like everyone else that ran yesterday, I prepared for and woke up for a 13.1 mile race. I think just about everyone was disappointed when they heard the announcement that a large portion of the course was flooded and the race would have to be scaled back. We paid for 13.1 miles. We trained for 13.1 miles. Some of us ate (or were planning to eat) for 13.1 miles. A lot of things were done expecting 13.1 miles. Obviously, no one can control the weather, but it is no secret Johnson Park in Piscataway floods often. It really doesn’t take much, a little drizzle can make that park flood. My unscientific estimate based solely on anecdotal evidence would be that Johnson Park floods at least 3-5 times each year. It’s just something that’s expected by anyone that lives here. It is a wonderful park and I really enjoy running through it, but if you’re going to plan a race that runs through it, you have to have a plan B. You just have to. You’d be silly not to. Unfortunately, CGI Racing did not have a plan B for yesterday. Again, I know they can’t control the weather, but this was something that should have been planned for. I know putting together an event this size and getting road closures and such are not easy, but when you’re putting that much work into something, you need to plan for things like this.

What made the length of the race even worse was that at the start, runners were told over and over that the course was shortened to 10 miles. 10 miles, not 9.55 miles. That’s not a huge difference, but it’s enough to make a difference. I think most people felt lied to about this. I know I did and I know my fiancée and our co-worker also did.

Not cool.

Alright, enough complaining, right?

The weather was sunny for most of the race and the temperature was nice, if not a little on the warm side, but the wind was strong. The wind was so strong that it was a definite factor for everyone. Parts of the course were with the wind at our backs, but it felt like the majority of the time was spent with a strong crosswind that noticeably moved runners around. At two different points, gusts were so strong that they blew my left leg sideways into the back of my right leg mid-stride as I was pulling it forward almost causing me to face plant. It also seemed that every uphill portion was straight into the wind.

With a significantly shorter course, I adjusted my expectations and my plan. I ran faster than I would have for a full 13.1 miles, but still, I didn’t feel as strong as I would have liked. In fact, I felt downright weak early on. It took me a while to get my stride on and settle into the run, but it never really felt quite right. I averaged a 7:32 mile which is pretty respectable, but that’s still 10 seconds slower than the 13-mile training runs I was doing four months ago and almost 30 seconds slower than my pace for the half marathon three months ago. But with an injury, you’ve got to be happy with anything and I am…ish.

I finished up with a semi-sprint and crossed the finish line at 1:11:53 (chip time) to place at 290 out of 2881 participants. My knees felt like they were going to give out during that last little push. It was awful. I ran 12 miles last weekend and felt stronger at the end of that than I did yesterday. What gives? At mile 8, I had a nice little second wind boost, but that didn’t last long, only about a mile. I came home and felt dead, the rest of my day was shot. Even taking into account how much harder we all had to work because of the wind, I shouldn’t have been beaten up like that for a sub-10 mile run. I really shouldn’t have. I hadn’t felt like that since the half marathon last year. I could make excuses for it like my injury and the wind and whatever else, but I was just off and that’s that.

Despite not feeling strong at the end, I still wanted a 13.1-mile race. I wanted to get a third half marathon under my belt. I really did.

So the fiancée and I have decided that we’re going to sign up for another half marathon next month that we were on the fence about. I want it, but I do want to be careful about my ankle. It’s still healing and, while it does feel better than it did a month ago, it has a little ways to go still.

More importantly, we signed up for the Philly Marathon in November. It’ll be our first and we’re super excited, yet insanely nervous about it. A year ago, after my first half, I said I would never run a full marathon, but here I am, already signed up for one.

Finally, after over two months of not being able to run, I’m getting ready to start again. My last run was the Disney World Half Marathon in early January, which while being a huge success, I was in a bit of pain during due to tendinitis in my ankle. Since that run, I’ve been to the orthopedist twice, rested a lot, and been visiting a physical therapist. Sadly, I’m not pain-free yet. Instead, I actually have pain in places that I didn’t have pain in before I stopped running. I don’t know what happened or what to make of being in arguably worse shape than I was before I stopped running, but I do know that I ran for four months with the pain in my ankle and it didn’t get better or worse during that period. Based on that and the fact that I’m no better than I was before I stopped running, I’m just going to start training for the Rutgers Unite half marathon next month. Screw it, right?

Some may say that this isn’t a smart idea, and it may not be, but I’m hating this no running thing. While I’ve enjoyed the extra free time, I do miss running a lot. I feel like something’s missing and when I see other people running outside, I get jealous. And let’s not forget the fact that I am signed up for next month’s race already, so I’d really like to run it rather than have that go to waste (yes, I realize that injury could be much, much more costly than a single race).

So the plan is to start running again this weekend with a very short run and build up quickly. I’ll train for a month, run the race, and then take off time again for my ankle if it’s still hurting. At that time, I won’t have any races I’m signed up for, except for maybe the Philly Marathon in the Fall. Before my ankle decided to start being stubborn about healing, I was hoping to run my first marathon in mid-May, but clearly barring some miracle, that’s just not going to happen, so November it is!

While training for the Disney half, I had been targeting to break under an hour and a half for this race (1:35 was my target for Disney and I beat that by two minutes), but I’ve come to terms with that not being realistic now. With only a month’s training after two months off and with what may be slightly more pain, I’ve accepted that this race will be slower instead of faster. My only goal is to not be slower than my previous time for this race, 1:47:11. That should be doable, but we’ll have to see how I feel throughout all of this. I am going to be very conscious of how things feel and I’ve promised myself that if things don’t feel right, I’d stop and not make things worse.

As usual, you can follow my very uninteresting running log, but that doesn’t show up on the main page of my site.

So, uh yeah, wish me luck?

As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted here in this running log in quite some time. The reason for that is because I haven’t run in a month now, not since the Disney World Half Marathon. I’ve been trying to heal up from my ankle injury and I have orders from the doctor to do absolutely no running. It sucks. I’m not liking this at all.

At this point, I’m no longer looking to break 90 minutes for the Rutgers Half Marathon in April and trying to pull off a full marathon in mid-May is looking to be out of the cards too. I’m going back to the doctor on Monday and we’ll see what he says then, but I’ve still been feeling pain, just different pain and in different spots.

Oh boy, half marathon number two. I clearly remember thinking to myself during the last few miles of my first one that I would never do that to myself again. However, it’s become apparent to me that long races are similar to childbirth in that they both must trigger the same chemical in the brain that makes you forget the pain and want to do it again. For people who have been doing this kind of thing for longer than just a couple years and who have run more long races, this must already be an accepted fact, unless maybe I’m alone in this feeling.

Anyway, once the fiancée and I found out that our group trip to Disney World just so happened to span Disney’s Marathon Weekend, we knew what the deal was. This needed to happen. Once we were signed up, we started a long training process. We knew that we’re both the kind of people that don’t know how to just run slowly and enjoy the scenery, we both run for time and are constantly trying to improve that time. With that in mind, we knew that we’d to really have to up our stamina so that we could run hard for 13.1 miles after three full days of walking around Disney and with another three and a half more days of the same following the race. Unfortunately, the four months of training we did leading up to the race was littered with injuries for both of us, more so for the fiancée than myself, but my ankle has been in bad shape for four months now. With all of the injuries, we didn’t get to do the training we wanted to do, but somehow we did it.

I guess I’ll talk about the course first. The race starts outside of Epcot and takes runners towards Magic Kingdom. There’s a lot of open road running for a little while, but eventually, the course leads runners into a crazy path through Magic Kingdom. Once you enter the park, you’re right on Main Street and there are people cheering everywhere. It’s intense and it’s loud, the adrenaline starts pumping like crazy here. The race continues into Tomorrowland and then around through Fantasyland. To exit Fantasyland, it’s a run right through Cinderella’s Castle. After Cinderella’s Castle, the course goes through Frontierland, but skips Adventureland. Instead, runners are taken out of the park by Splash Mountain and start the trek back to Epcot along some dark roads (the sun still isn’t up yet, but more that later) that don’t have a lot going on. Here it’s easy to lose a some of that adrenaline that was pumping through Magic Kingdom. There are random cheer spots and DJs that help with that though though. At one point the course double back on itself as it gets a little closer to Epcot. Here, I was able to see the last wave of runners going by in the opposite direction only a couple of miles into the race. It was kind of cool to see the very end of the pack and the cleanup crews right behind them.

The conclusion of the race takes the runners right into Epcot and around Spaceship Earth. Runners head into Epcot and do a 180 around the Christmas tree at the entrance to the pathway around the World Showcase Lagoon. With less than half a mile left here, it’s time for the final push to the finish line. The course goes down the other side of Spaceship Earth and out into the parking lot for a huge finishing area with bleachers and tons of people cheering.

Even though the half marathon only hits two of the parks, it’s a great course. The full marathon course is even better and hits all four parks, but none of that for us…this trip.

Okay, so with the course out of the way, let’s get to how I did.

The race starts bright (read: dark) and early at 5:35am. Not only is the sun still not up yet, but about 90% of the race was in the dark for me. With the race being this early, we had to get up at 2:45am to get dressed and catch a bus over to the starting area. The bus drop off was about a twenty minute walk away from the start so we needed plenty of time. We made sure to call it an early night the day before and tried to get in bed by 7:30, but I think I only mustered about three hours of sleep. Luckily adrenaline took over and the lack of sleep didn’t feel like too much of an issue. Surprisingly.

The race had eight waves of runners spaced six minutes apart, I was in the first thanks to an ambitious goal and a decent first half marathon time of 1:47:11. Once I got up to my starting coral, I could already feel a little soreness in my feet from being on them constantly for the three days before…and my right knee hurt which was a little worrisome since that’s generally the one that doesn’t give me problems. I tried not to worry about it too much though, I just needed to get through the 13.1 miles ahead of me.

The air was also pretty chilly. I ran the race in shorts and a t-shirt, but it was only about 50 out and I didn’t bring any throw-away clothes so standing around waiting for the race to start wasn’t very pleasant. I tried to warm up as best I could while the pre-race stuff was going on on the stage in front of me.

The race started off with a blast of fireworks and we were off. There were a lot of people around, but the road was wide enough that it wasn’t hard at all to get around people and find my own space to run. While I had read a few descriptions of the race before that said some spots get crowded, I never felt like I had to fight for my space. The beginning of any race seems to be a big struggle for me still as I try to find my pace while getting around people, I have a bad habit of starting out too fast because of it. This time I did a better job than normal, my first mile time was 7:22/mile which was my average pace in my training runs. From here, I kicked it up to about under 7 minutes/mile for a few miles. Probably more than I needed to, but I was able to keep the pace without feeling like I was pushing too hard.

It wasn’t long into the race before my feet felt legitimately sore. As much as I love my Vibram Five Fingers and as much as they’ve really helped me become a better runner, I probably could have used a little cushioning. The soreness mostly came and went throughout the race. My ankle proved to provide me with more pain than my feet did, but again, that came and went. The worst thing for my ankle was the curves in the road. Many of the turns in the course are along on and off ramps which are banked quite a bit. Not being able to land my foot with my ankle completely straight felt awful. I faced the same issue while training when turning at street corners (did I mention that my ankle pain started four months ago and I’ve been running on it since?). I tried to suck it up as much as I could though. I’ve been planning on seeing a doctor and taking a few weeks off so I knew that I just needed my ankle to get me through one last run before I could let it heal. I wasn’t going to hold back now.

When the course took me into Magic Kingdom, I was a little tired, I was keeping a 7:04 pace at this point, but I got a huge pick me up from all of the people and the cheering through the park. It was wonderful. I also felt kind of like I was doing a photo shoot since there was a photographer every ten feet on both sides for a while. This was kind of awesome and I tried to pose for as many of them as I could as I went by them. Just for fun.

Magic Kingdom was a great mid-race boost of adrenaline, but having read about the course before, I knew I was in for a few miles of nothingness after that so I tried to mentally prepare myself for that.

Throughout the quieter and darker roads, I just kept on pushing myself to keep my pace. I slipped a little, but not much. My pace only lost a few seconds. If my feet weren’t in such bad shape, I think I could have stayed stronger through this section and actually picked things up instead of slipping a little. It really wasn’t so much my ankle here as it was the bottoms of my feet…though that’s not to say that I didn’t entertain the idea of stopping at the medical tent for a quick ankle taping in the 11th mile.

As we approached Epcot again, I was dreading the final hill which I was able to see coming for a few minutes before I got to it. It looked long, but surprisingly, my legs motored up it and sped around a few other runners. This was great a great pick me up for the end of the race.

At this point, I knew the finish line was coming up soon and, once I hit the 12th mile marker, I picked it up a little. I started pushing myself here but I was losing steam quickly. I just kept throwing what I had at course and knew I was getting close to the finish. Once I did the turn around at the Christmas tree at the World Showcase, I knew it was almost over. As I exited the park, I could see the finish line coming up and did one final push to the finish, but it wasn’t as big of a push as I normally do. At this point, I could see the clock ticking and knew I had rocked the race so I decided there was no need to really go for broke to shave for a couple more seconds.

I crossed the finish line at 1:33:54 clock time and 1:33:05 after actually crossing the start line. My goal was 1:35 so I was super elated. I had a HUGE smile on my face as I crossed the line and that smile stayed there for a long time after finishing. I was the 260th finisher out of 27,000 runners, but someone in a wave after me finished in a shorter time so my final place was 261. I will gladly take that.

This was such a great race. I really loved it and even though I was a bit sore from it, I felt insanely better than I did after my first half marathon. I could walk and kept no real downtime between the race and going back out for a day in the park. I actually kind of miss the race. I want to do it again, like right now.

The fiancée finished in 2:03:45 which was a little slower than her first half marathon, but insanely better than she hoped for. She suffered much worse injuries than I did and barely got any training in at all for the race. She still wasn’t fully healed up by race day and it had gotten to the point where she really just hoped to finish. All things considered, I think she’s a damn trooper and that’s a great time for her.

After the race, we wore our Donald medals around the park all day and kept a pretty big high going. Just like when we had our “just engaged” buttons on for our trip last year, we got tons of congratulations from people. On Sunday, we spent a few minutes watching part of the full marathon through Animal Kingdom which really just made me wish I was running that too.What we saw was one of the last waves of runners coming by at around mile 16, but it was still fun to watch because these were the runners that wore costumes and ran onto rides as they’d go by them. Some of these runners even congratulated us when they saw our medals for the half marathon. I thought they were crazy, but Disney’s Marathon Weekend definitely has a feel and sense of camaraderie unlike any other race I’ve ever run. I really loved this.

The biggest surprise of the weekend was just how many people did the Goofy Challenge which is both the half and the full marathon and nets you the Donald medal, a Mickey medal, and a Goofy medal. This seemed insane to me, but it seemed like a few thousand people most have done it. While it appeared that many of those people did more of a jog/power walk for one or both of the races, this is still pretty impressive.

We’ve decided that we have to do the Goofy Challenge, we can do it. I know we can. Even without having run a full marathon yet, I think we could train to do this. We’re looking at the 2013 marathon weekend to do this since 2012 may be tough on us with it only being a couple of months after our honeymoon. Either way, If we run this race again, I think we’re definitely going to cut down on the amount of time in Disney before the race so that we’re not already worn down a bit.

I’m still really excited about this race and like I said before, I’m kind of missing it. I want it again. I’ve got another half marathon coming up in April and I’m hoping to run even faster, but I’m taking some time to let my ankle heal first. If my ankle heals up, I think I’ll be in good shape to beat this time. My feet won’t be sore before the race even starts and I’ll probably have more sleep.

One other thing that I wanted to add is about a husband and wife that had run the race together previously, but could not this year. The husband is a part of the US military and is currently deployed in Iraq. Because they couldn’t run together and really wanted to, he set up a half marathon at his base in Iraq and got 500 other soldiers and military members to run with him. He synced up the start of the race so him and his wife would be running at the same time and they used the virtual partner feature of their Garmins to virtually run together. Before the race, they got to wish each other good luck via a live satellite feed. This was one of the most amazing things.

Below are are bunch of photos, some of us, some of the full marathon runners, and some of the medal we received. They were taken with a variety of cameras (my DSLR, a point and shoot, and an iPhone).

The decision has been made, I’m going to run the half marathon in Disney World this upcoming January. It conveniently falls right in the middle of a trip I was already planning on taking there so I feel like I have to do it. I actually can’t believe how much I want to do another one. The first one was one of the most physically intense things I’ve ever done, during the last three miles of the race, I hated myself for doing that to myself. Despite that, it didn’t take long to forget about those feelings and want to do it again.

There are a few half marathons that all fall on the same day this October, but unfortunately, my fiancée and I will be away that weekend so we won’t be able to make any of them. Since we both love Disney World and got engaged there, we felt like it was almost fate that it fell on a day in which we were already planning on being there. I mean, I don’t really believe in fate, but you know.

This time around, I plan to train more intensely with more longer runs and a faster pace. I was insanely happy with my time in the last race, but I want to do better this time. I think with the right training, I can take a few minutes off without a problem. My biggest concern about the race is that it’s right in the middle of a vacation. It took me a couple days to recover after the last one to the point where I could actually walk without much soreness. I don’t want that to happen again, I don’t want to lose a couple days of Disney because of the race. If we have to take the rest of race day easy, that’s okay, we’re going to be there for a full week, but the next day, I want to get back to having fun. Going to Disney World is a very walking intensive trip and since we’re going with a group, I don’t want to slow anyone down. The other thing is that for a couple days before the race, I want to be careful how I eat so that I don’t have anything in me that’s not going to feel great around mile nine or ten.

I’m hoping that some solid training starting now will help a lot with those issues. I want to get my body to the point where 13 miles isn’t such a shock. I think if 10+ mile runs are more the norm for me by then, I should be able to get through the race with a great time and without being sore for a few days afterwards.

We shall see!

I did it! After months of training, today was the big day. I spent the last week doing a taper and rested up yesterday, doing little more than a nice walk through my town to stretch out my legs. My fiancée and I set out our clothes and devised our game plan for the morning so all we had to do was wake up, get dressed, and head on over to the race.

It was pretty cold this morning, in the 40s, and the weather forecast wasn’t predicting it to get all that much warmer doing the hours of the race. This threw me off a bit, I generally prefer to run in shorts and a t-shirt, but it was seeming like that was going to be a bit under-dressed for the start of the race. I made a last minute decision to throw on some spandex under my shorts. I also grabbed a long sleeve t-shirt to throw on over top. Unfortunately, I don’t have many long sleeve t-shirts so it was hard to find one that I was okay with potentially ditching on the side of the road. After that, I ate a small breakfast, half a peanut butter sandwich and a bowl of fruit. It was only two hours until race time so I didn’t want to eat too much, but I knew I needed enough to sustain me throughout the race.

When we left the house to head over to the race, it was definitely cold out. Not the kind of cold that’s unbearable on a normal day this time of year, but the kind of cold that I hate to run in. We got over to where the race started about an hour beforehand and tried to walk around as much as possible and hydrate ourselves as best we could without the potential of having to pee mid-race. Through all of this walking around, I started to get more and more nervous about the weather. It was beautifully sunny, but I was worried that my hands were going to freeze while running since I didn’t have any gloves to wear. There wasn’t much that I could do about it at this point, I was going to have to run with what I had so I went to the bathroom one last time and my fiancée and I wished each other luck. Then we headed on over to our respective starting groups, which we later found out were too slow for us.

While standing behind the pacer, waiting for the race to start, I started to warm up a ton, probably a combination of the sun coming up more and standing around very close to a large group of people. I started to get more comfortable with the temperature as I warmed up my legs by jumping up and down in place a bit. I realized that I had been worrying too much about the coldness and that the long sleeve shirt was a huge mistake. I didn’t want to have to ditch it, so I decided to tie it around my waist like a total goober. I thought I had my mind all set and was ready to go, but then at this very moment, my mouth went completely dry. I had complete and utter cotton-mouth and there was nothing I could do about it at this point. I was stuck and it never got better. I ran the entire race like this.

Finally, it was time for the race to start and much to my surprise, it started quickly. It did not take long at all to actually get up to the starting point, less than 50 seconds, much less than many of the 5ks that I’ve done. Unfortunately, there were a ton of people though and just like any other race I’ve run, I had to carefully make my way up through the pack and find and open spot at a comfortable speed. I almost immediately regretted wearing the spandex under my shorts, I couldn’t believe how quickly that happened, it was less than a half of a mile. But unlike the shirt, I was stuck with this.

Through the first couple of miles, I was feeling very good. I felt comfortable with the pace I had chosen and felt like I could keep it for a long time. Unfortunately, this pace was much faster than the group I started with so I had to do a lot of weaving to get up to where I needed to be. I was surprised to see that within the first 2-3 miles, there were already a bunch of people running off the side to go to the bathroom. How did these people have to pee so quickly? Poor planning.

Up through the first five miles, I was feeling amazingly great. I got settled into the run–this generally seems to take me at least three miles for most of my longer runs–and was keeping a pace much, much faster than I had trained with. I managed my pace based on my breathing and as long as I was able to breathe comfortably, I kept upping it until just under the point where my breathing would have started to get heavy. This was a tactic I’d never used before today, but it worked great.

My goal for the day was to finish in under two hours, which up until race day seemed like it would be a challenge for me. I really didn’t know what to expect from my body. I think I was more worried about sustaining this pace for two hours rather than worrying about the overall distance. So here I was at the fifth mile keeping an amazing pace, completely blowing away what I was even hoping to do, and feeling very great with it.

Some may call this cheating, but I like to run with my iPhone, both for music and for the IMapMyFitness app which uses the GPS to track your time, speed, and course. It’s a great app and I’ve been using it for almost as long as I’ve been running. It’s really nice to receive the audio updates of what your time, distance, and pace are, but if you’re not careful, it can kind of kill your run too. You have to be very careful not to focus on that and think too much about it. This is something that I often do when running, but it also helps me to be able to push myself a little more than I otherwise would. But for today, I would say it ended up helping me quite a bit. I found that I was barely paying attention to my music, which is rare for when I run. Today, I was much more focused on the running.

Anyway, back to mile five, IMapMyFitness was telling me that my pace was way ahead of where I wanted to be, but again, I felt good about it, so I decided to change my goal. I bumped up my time quite a bit and set aim to keep this pace throughout the race. I knew that later in the race, it would be difficult, but it felt doable to me. The only problem was that less than a mile after deciding this is when my knee started to hurt. The left one, the one that’s always been a problem for me. It was tolerable, but I didn’t know how much worse it would get. I ran through it and said to myself “screw it, this is the day you’ve been training for, you’re not going to do any new damage to your knee today, deal with it.” So deal with it, I did. Luckily, the pain was short-lived and ol’ Lefty fell in line within less than a mile.

So I was back to feeling good again as the course continued onto the first part where it switched back on itself. This was particularly annoying because there was a complete 180° turn and not a lot of room to do it. I tried to take the turn as wide as possible, but it was still tough. Running back up along the stretch I just came from, I kept an eye out for the fiancée and when I finally saw her, I got a huge bump of optimism as I could see that she was clearly killing it. She was just slightly behind the nine minute mile pacer that I was originally lined up behind and I could see it on her face that she was feeling good too. This powered me through quite a bit up to mile eight. But this is when I really started to feel fatigued. It came on quickly too, but I was feeling it now. I knew I could keep it going for a while still, but I was starting to worry about the entirety of the last five miles.

As I approached mile nine, things started to feel even worse. I was starting to struggle to keep my speed now and then, mid-update, my IMapMyFitness crashed and took out my music too. I actually thought my battery had died since the GPS is a huge drain, but it felt a little quick for that. I had run with it much longer than this a few times and it still didn’t come close to dying. I didn’t worry about it though, I didn’t need to know my pace anymore, at this point, I had to just continue to give it all I had. I was feeling it though and for the first time all race, as I came up to the aid station, I decided to grab a Gatorade instead of water. It didn’t really do too much to help me and my body was really telling me that it wanted to stop, but I resisted the urge to slow down and knew the rest of the race was going to be tough.

The course doubled back on itself again with another 180° turn which was just as annoying as the first, but this time, I knew that the section that I had to run back up was much longer than last time. I started to slow down just a bit, I was struggling even more now than I was before, but I was still powering through as best I could. I saw the fiancée coming up again so I ran closer to the middle and put my hand up for a high-five. She was looking good, not much pain in her face. We high-fived and kept going. I was hoping that would give me a bit of a mental boost, but it didn’t. I was tired as hell and as I ran by the ten mile marker, I thought to myself “seriously, I have to do a whole 5k still?” That realization didn’t help at all, but I tried my best to stay positive and remind myself that I didn’t have that much left. At this point, I was giving it almost everything I had to keep on pace with the other runners around me. A couple started to pass me, but I wanted to keep going as fast as I could without completely killing the energy I had left to make it to the finish line.

I made it up to the eleventh mile marker and started to push as much as I could, but this was really getting to be a serious struggle. I mean, it had been a struggle for a while, but my legs were not only fatiguing heavily, but they were starting to hurt too. From my thighs to my calves to my feet, it all hurt and my knees weren’t happy either. At the next aid station, I actually had to slow down to a walk for about ten seconds to drink a cup of water. I knew I needed to get the water in me instead of all over my face this time. I didn’t want to slow down, but it had to be done. My body was saying “Yeah! Yeah! Stop!” There was no way I was giving in though, I was too close. I tried to pick it up a little here, but my body wasn’t cooperating, every time I pushed faster, my body pushed back and said to me “hey, if you’re going to do that, I’m going to make sure you puke all over the place, don’t be ass. Got it?” I listened to it here, but I made a deal with myself that I was going to push as hard as I could once I hit the final stretch.

Then, my music came back on out of nowhere. I don’t know what happened, but IMapMyFitness finished the audio update it had started three miles earlier and my music started playing again. It was weird and almost threw me off a bit, but it was kind of nice to hear what the current time was at this point.

When the final stretch came, there was about half a mile left. I told myself that it was time to give it every last bit of energy I had and tried to do just that. I started to push hard, but my body wasn’t having it. I had to slow it back down or I was definitely going to throw up. This was quite upsetting, but I really didn’t want to throw up, so I kept it at just under the breaking point for as long as I could. As I approached the finish, I saw the fiancée’s parents cheering and as much as I wanted this to help, it didn’t do much. I was running a little faster now, but not a whole lot.

The course took a final turn for the last tenth of a mile. Why the course was designed to have a turn like that at the end, I have no idea, but it was there. I came down the final bit and started giving it more. If I puked across the finish line, I didn’t care anymore. I saw the clock and knew that I had done better than what I had set my goal to at mile five, but I still wanted to shave off every last second I could. A couple hundred feet from the finish line, I saw a girl out of the corner of my eye coming up about to pass me. I don’t know why I cared, but with only a couple hundred feet left, I wasn’t letting anyone pass me just before I finished. I broke out into a full on sprint. I don’t know where that energy came from, but it lasted just long enough to get me across the finish line.

My final time was great. So much better than I was originally hoping for. My official chip time was 1:47:11. At 8:11/mile, that’s a full minute per mile faster than I needed for my original goal. Overall, I finished #440 out of 2433 total runners and #334 of out of 1078 men. I couldn’t be any happier with my time, I blew away my goal and I know that there wasn’t anything I could have done today to shave even a couple of seconds off. My fiancée finished at 2:02:15 which also put her a full minute per mile ahead of where she wanted to be. But unlike me, she didn’t struggle as much at the end. Even as I watched (and videoed from my iPhone) her come down the last few hundred feet and across the finish line, she looked composed and like she could have just kept on going. I was impressed.

Afterward, I was definitely in pain. My legs were sore all over, my knees and feet hurt, it wasn’t a great feeling. We walked around a lot for a while before heading home to help keep from tightening up, but it was difficult. After a shower, I started to feel much better and was gaining some energy back, but then we went to Red Robin and devoured a ton of food. When we got home, I died on the bed for a couple of hours and when I woke up, my knees were sore as hell. Some of my leg muscles are sore too, but not like they were before. It’s mostly my knees. I’m seriously walking like an old man right now.

All in all, I think the training that we did helped a lot…at least for the first nine miles. Though, it didn’t do anything at all to prepare me for those last four miles. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that almost all of my training was at a pace around ten minutes per mile instead of what I ended up running today. My goal through that was to teach myself to be able to keep a slower pace for a longer period of time, which is something that I tend to struggle with. My body feels more comfortable at a bit of a faster pace, but it’s not a sustainable pace for thirteen miles.

So would I do it again? Probably, but it’s going to be hard, I had a great time and anything less than that will feel like a failure. I’d have to step up the training and build more stamina in my legs. They have a lot of strength thanks to all the mountain biking (this helps a lot when running uphill), but I need to train them to sustain this kind of speed better.

One thing that I’ve definitely learned through all of this is that a full marathon is probably a bit out of my grasp. I would love to be able to do it, but with the way my knees feel right now, I can’t imagine it to be a good idea. Plus, finding the time to do the training for this was tough enough, but to have to train for a full marathon would probably make for a bigger lifestyle change than I’m willing to make.