It took me just under two hours, but it wasn’t the time that I cared about. In 2005, I ran my first half marathon since that disastrous first race.
I wasn’t injury-free, but it was progress. I’d try a new program, figure out what was working, then hang onto that and move onto something else. I even shaved my shins so I could tape them up without causing pain… (cool, right?)Īnd yet most of it didn’t do a damn thing to help me complete a half marathon, much less a full.īut gradually, I started to notice what did work. I tried heart-monitor training, running in different shoes, taking walk breaks, doing all sorts of stretching, icing, and massage. I Tried Everything Possible to Make it Workįor three years after that first race, I experimented with every thinkable solution. So I started over, and decided this time I’d do it right, focusing on running a strong half marathon before I even dreamed of running another full one. Having crashed in the race, I somehow felt worse about it than I did before I had run it! I’m not sure we even lifted our arms for the finish photo, as it took everything we had to pretend like we were running at the end.įor years after that, I badly wanted to redeem myself. When we finally limped across the finish line, we were a sorry, sorry sight. We all did run the race, although I wouldn’t call what we did for the last 8 miles “running.” We made some hideous training and nutrition mistakes, so bad that all three of us got hurt in the process. But we downloaded a free training plan from the internet and just jumped right in. We had no idea what we were getting into. (And we figured it’d give us abs, and girls liked abs, so why not?) We wanted to do it for the reasons above, like incredible fitness and achievement of something so great. How a Lack of Knowledge Can Really Screw You Up for Yearsīack when I was a wild college kid, a few friends and I decided we were going to run a marathon. And I want to help you discover those answers for yourself. Since you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’ve found yourself asking similar questions. What must it feel like to be able to just drop everything and run 10 or 15 miles? What kind of fitness level must you have once you can run that far? And how great do you feel when you accomplish something like that? I had only just recently gotten comfortable running three miles at a time, and when I’d hear about people finishing these longer races, I’d ask myself questions like: When I was a new-ish runner, I was fascinated by the idea that otherwise “normal” people could train themselves to run 13.1 or 26.2 miles without stopping. If the mere thought of jumping from something like a 5K all the way up to 13.1 miles for the first time just seems a little, well, intimidating - trust me, I’ve been there too.
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