Last Saturday I pulled a crazy. I ran the Salt Lake City Half Marathon. I was hoping to meet up with my old roomie from USU who was flying in from Washington D.C. I was late getting there...and well Shauna was even later. I should have known this would happen. I had planned to walk the silly thing - but finding myself solo, I thought - why not? I'll just run as far as I can. 2 hours 12 minutes and 30 seconds later - I stopped running for the 1st time.
I am not really a runner. Really. I can walk for FOREVER and a day, but running? Not on your life. Prior to a year ago, I had never even run a mile. Last summer I signed up for a 5K in Ogden. I thought, what the heck, I'll try running and see how far I get. I ended up running the whole thing, and it felt pretty good. So - I ran about 6 or 7 more 5 K's over the course of the last summer. In September or October I ran a 10K. That is seriously the last time that I have run and the longest distance that I have run ever. It has been a couple of months since I have tried running. I do work out - almost religously 6 days a week. I do Body Pump and Spinning sometimes, but most of the time I hop on the treadmill in my basement and indulge in my latest TV series addiction (Desperate Housewives - yes I watch that crazy show. It's one of those soap operay shows that I think is kind of scuzzy but I can't help myself to. It is just insanely WAY too much like Utah, though. Seriously, I think it should be renamed Utaharian Lane. I can't believe how much Utah reminds me of this show. I can't help but laugh hysterically at the whole thing.....anyhow....I digress.) So, I get on a treadmill and watch TV or I get on the elliptical and go pretty darn slow while reading books, magazines, and listening to classical music or minus tracks to the latest show I'm trying to play for. See - I find exercise pretty monotonous. I have to do something else while I do it. It always makes me feel happy - so I do it - but I have to have my mind engaged or else I go crazy doing it. So - if I can't read or watch something, I'm counting to 1000 several times over, or planning my outfits for the next three weeks, or memorizing something written in front of me - like the Step off this machine if you feel faint, dizzy, etc. signs, or devising nefarious schemes, etc....you get the point.
Anyhow - I ran really easily for the 1st 8 miles. In fact I was thinking, why on earth would anyone ever torture themselves enough and train for one of these buggers? See - running is misery, and so why train? Just run it - get the misery over and the challenge and the ecstasy of completion over all in a day. That was the 1st 8 miles. Easy - breezy - cheezy. No blisters, no sores, all downhill,
Boy was I prematurely cocky. I was sooooo wrong. What went through my head the rest of the way..... "Mile 9 - okay.....I'm beginnning to hurt. A lot. Mile 10 - I can't do this. I am retarded for trying. Whoa. That burns....um maybe I should've trained. Mile 11 - Okay, I definitely get why you train now! But...only 2 more miles to go, I can't stop now....the competitor in me comes alive. Mile 12 - I am still running. Stubbornly. It is an uphill battle from here, literally. I slow down - I see Maria Stone Hansen pass me - as she should - she was smart enough to train - she actually used some common sense before getting herself into a predicament like a half marathon :) I keep running, barely, but I keep at it. Mile 13 and the finish line....Wow, why is everyone screaming at me? The crowd roars...Incredible! Especially considering not a soul came to watch me run. No one waited for me at the finish line - why are they screaming? Oh....yeah...the winner of the FULL marathon finished about 30 seconds before me. They were screaming for him. great - he ran 26 miles in the time it took me to run 13.1 (well, actually a little longer because I started late.) It was fun to have the screaming, even if it wasn't in fact for me. :) As I crossed the finish line....I felt....well....absolutely NOTHING. Seriously - I was numb all over. I'm not sure I really got a runner's high, I think I ended up more with a runner's paralysis. It was kinda crazy. My hands and arms were completely numb. I literaly didn't feel anything. I figured out later it had come from gripping my music cell phone in one arm with a death grip and my water bottle in the other for the 1st 12 miles. I know they have little cups of water - but I hate stopping. If I stopped - I'd never get started again. Seriously. I can't stop for water - and well - when I'm thirsty I want water NOW. I don't want to wait 2 miles to get a little paper cup. So....I had held on a little too tightly and cut my circulation I think. A few minutes later all the feeling began to return to my body again, and the gravity of what I had just done settled in. Pretty cool feeling. Pretty darn sore legs. My knees were fine, I never gasped for air, and I remarkably somehow skipped out on blisters....but.....my calves were killing me - and every time I tried to go up or down stairs I thought I was going to die. For three days after the thing I would scoot on my bottom down the stairs because it hurt too bad to walk. Yup - my calves and my thighs. Killer.
So....just in case you were wondering if you should try to run a half marathon with no training....I'll save you the trouble of trying to find out for yourself. Don't do it. It hurts :) i was really happy to finish, but man alive - I paid for it the next few days. I was stunned actually that I was even able to do it - and my time wasn't half bad - it was a 10 minute 6 second mile pace.....it made me think, maybe just maybe I should train and try for a full...what if I actually put some effort into it what could I do???.......but then I think about it clearly and come to my senses. I just don't think I have the oomph to actually train. Yuck. running every day for months on end? No way. i think this is the only way that I ever ever would have completed a half marathon.....no training....so no pressure to finish....no torture for months....just go for it and suffer pretty miserably for a week afterwards. I still don't recommend it. I don't think I'll be trying it again anytime soon, either! If I do - I think I'd plan ahead a little better. See....its not really fun to cross the finish line and feel like you'll never move your limbs again...I think I'd rather go....WAHOO I did it.....but then again, that would require months of effort and miles on my part......I think I'm too lazy. What a dillema.
P.S. the most "fun" part of the whole shindig....it took me almost as long to locate my keys as it took me to run the bugger! They had a bag drop off. I decided at the last second I didn't really want to carry my etch a sketch key chain with me on the whole thing or my jacket. So I left it and when I went to retrieve it - it wasn't there. I stood in line for FOREVER, finally a little girl tried to find it - she couldn't. they told me to just come back later that day and look when there were less bags.....um....lemme think about that....NO! I was stupid enough to put my keys in my jacket in the plastic bag. Worse even, I had taken the van with the car seats.....even if I could have called Eric, he would have had no way to come and get me. he was at home eating waffles and whip cream with the boys and had no car seats. So I begged them to let me hop over the table and sift through the bags.....no dice. Finally I found it in the lost and found area, after going through every bag, and every bin at least twice. It was in the "Q" box. I guess I need to learn to right my last name a little clearer.....oh the joys :)
So anyhow...here's my insanity and a few pics to document it.
Start of the Race - all smiles..................
Middle of race - still okay....(there's Maria and her relative Des in the background there)
End of the race - no smiles now! Only the pain! Arghhhh!
