Running My First Half-Marathon

One of the things I've been focusing on over the past few months is getting in shape for my Japan trip. It's important to me not to be your typical fat American tourist there, but also have the endurance and stamina to be walking around all day. So, I've been dieting and exercising. When I workout, I do a mix of the Insanity program and running.

So easy that I did it in my sleep. Really, Mr. Photographer? I saw you snap at least a half dozen shots of me. Was this really the best one?

Running has always been something that I can get back into easily when I've stopped for any period of time. I've had gotten back up to running over an hour and thought to myself, "Hey, I could probably do another hour run and that would be close to a half-marathon distance." So, I looked up when the earliest half-marathon was taking place near me and signed up.

The Lake Sammamish Half-Marathon seemed perfect. A great view of the lake nearly the entire time with 60% gravel trail mixed with 40% sidewalk. I was ready and really only needed two or three training runs before the big one. The longest run I did before the half-marathon was a 10 miler.

I completed the half-marathon on March 9th in a time of 2 hours, 18 minutes, and 42 seconds. I was very happy with my time especially since it was my first race at this length. My average pace was 10:35 per mile, which is about right for my normal jogs, too.

As you can see on my running app, I was actually running sub 10-minute miles for about the first half and then started losing some of my energy. The 11th mile is where I started to really deteriorate, and it's not because I was tired. Well, I mean, I was, but it was all in my head. At mile 11, you could see the finish line even though you still had 2 miles to go! It's amazing what that false sense of completion does to your mind because I slowed down to 12-minute miles by that point.

Still, I finished it without stopping or walking and that's what was important to me! I plan on continuing to run after I get back from my trip, but I don't know when my next half-marathon will be. At this point, I'd like to convince myself to do a full marathon, but I struggle with the thought of having to run two half-marathons at the moment. We'll see.