Woke up at 5:15 yesterday and went to Indianapolis to run the half marathon. I'd been training for three months using Hal Higdon's training plan, so even though I had only ever run ten miles before, I was fairly confident that I could at least finish. My father suggested this plan, and I have great faith in structure; I truly believe that following instructions leads to success. And in this case it did.
The course was very pretty: the leaves are changing and we ran through some very posh neighborhoods full of McCain/Palin lawn signs and an agreeable park with a big blue lake. It was fairly flat, which was awesome because, having trained in hilly Bloomington, I was able to power up what few hills there were and pass a lot of people. In fact I spent most of the race passing people, which was fun - I started off in the 10 minute mile group and ended up running 8:44 miles, so the first four miles in particular were spent just passing everyone. Around six miles I started to worry that I had gone too quickly. I wasn't wearing a watch and, much to my dismay, there were no pacers at the mile markers, so I really had no clue how fast I was going. Once I hit seven miles everything was smooth sailing, and I spent the last mile and a half or so just letting it all out. I had an excellent iPod playlist - I crossed the finish line to "Reach for the Stars" by S-Club 7, which was fun - but for the most part I was so much in the zone I barely noticed anything. Except the pain in my knees and ankles, a little bit.
It's kind of sad, but Josh, who had driven me to Indy, didn't see me cross the finish line. Partially this was because I was merely a blur, but partially it was because neither of us expected me to come in under two hours. At 1:57, when I finished, he was still looking for a spot to watch from. (1:57, I might add, was merely my clock time; my official time, which started when I crossed the start, rather than when the gun went off, was 1:54). I was pretty tired and stiff afterwards, but after an afternoon of watching Scrubs, napping, and reading Frege, I was in good enough shape to attend my colleague Andrew's cowboy-themed hootenanny. It was a good party: the Werewolf was there, fresh from his new job at Ohio State, and as much of a sad sack as ever, and there was a small bonfire and some friendly, highly allergenic dogs, and some decent beer.
Today I woke up shortly before ten, then slept from about eleven to 3:30. I am honestly pretty appalled by this but I suppose a case could be made that I needed it. My next athletic goal will be to run a full marathon, which I suppose I'll start training for after I find out where I'm living next year. Part of this training will include another half marathon, and I'll be moving up to Higdon's intermediate training plan. I'd really like to try to get down to 8 minute miles - can the runners in the audience indicate whether this is possible?
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2 comments:
Yes, that is quite attainable.
Sure, why not? You're in the sufficiently youthful bracket where your times are likely to improve, to one degree or another, for some time yet. I've noticed that the winners of marathons, for example, and even the top twenty or so, are mostly in the 30-34 age group. Have you seen Murakami's book? He's about my age and only recently suffering a decline in performance.
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