Today was the big race. I finished it in 2:22, which was pretty much exactly 11 minute miles. I checked my watch a couple of times and I basically ran at the same pace throughout the entire race. Did not stop to walk at all, ran the whole time.
In terms of observations on the race, as I expected, I was challenged by my feet and ankles. Started noticing them basically on mile 1. This was a 100% concrete running, and I did all of my training at Greenlake, trying to stay on the grass or softer paths, which I accomplished probably over 90% of training. The one time I ran on concrete was training in Vancouver BC and I totally had my arches and ankles act up that day, and subsequently pretty much every other training run. Honestly, I am not a runner, and the thought of my main exercise being running, particularly on concrete, just sounds patently awful. I do not miss this at all, Seriously - at all. Love my kettlebell training, and here is why as I was reminded yet again today. There were also no hills at all for my training, and plenty of hills in the Seattle 1/2 - anyone that knows Seattle knows there are plenty of hills. I absolutely crushed all hills today. In fact, after the first one, I wanted more of them which surprised me at first because this was never a strength of mine in the past. I realized that all of the KB work with swings, dead-lifts, snatches, squats etc. has seriously developed my glutes and they are now a strength of mine. I felt those glutes just kick in on the hills. I was passing people left right and center. And then on the flats, I would get passed - feet and ankles just don't have the miles and the durability for running. That is one thing that the KBs don't really directly train, given that most movements are standing in place.
In the past I think my best every half marathon was 1:53 in Vienna, Austria, in 2005, over 8 years ago. The last 1/2 marathon I ran was the Seattle Rock n Roll, which was in June 2010, about a year after our son Liam was born. Jill and I ran that race together, and pretty much all of the 1/2 marathons I have ever ran (about 13 or 14) together. I trained for this race alone, and I ran this race alone. In some respects that makes me sad because I think about the last 13 months that have been so challenging personally, particularly since Jill moved out in February and our separation began. On the other hand, I am proud that I was able to accomplish this goal and demonstrate to myself again that I have some deep reserves of willpower and motivation. At times in the last 13 months it has been hard to find those reserves, and find that motivation, I will be honest. But it is there, and I feel like today was another step in a positive direction for me and ironically running really has absolutely nothing to do with that at all. It was just a vehicle to remind me that I am capable of doing more than I think I can do, it just takes some faith, patience, a plan, determination and a willingness to keep going even when things get difficult. I can take a lot from this experience over the last couple of months and build on it and that is what I intend to do.
