My first half marathon was this past weekend. This is a photo from just after I finished. There was a full marathon run simultaneously as the half which started 13.1 miles behind on the same track. For those of you who don't know, a marathon is 26.2 miles long (The .2 being the little known fact). I didn't know that. I hadn't realized that they started us on 13.1 marker either. This became vital information when I sprinted to the 26 mile marker only to find that I had a fifth of a mile to go. That might not seem like much, but in the mentality of "Leave everything you've got on the field" I had left nothing for that last itsy bitsy chunk of pavement in between me and rest/water/food otherwise known as the finish line. I paid for that mistake dearly. Live and learn I guess. I exceeded my expectations though. I ended up placing dead center in the lineup of male half marathon runners. I had expected to place dead last, since this was my first attempt. Its amazing what you can push your body to do. It is equally amazing how your body will make you pay for it the next day.
3 comments:
Wow, congrat's Jerry. I think it's amazing how you trained for this too. I ran a 6mi race once and felt like I was going to die. It may be a "half" marathon, but damn it's a long way to run. Congratulations!
Congrats, dude!! That's a long way for your first major run! :-) Hey - you need to e-mail or call me and tell me lots of stories entitled "Mark at Alma". ;-) It'll be way fun, I swear.
Wow; that's impressive, and I can fully understand where that 0.2 would be a killer (heck, running the 0.2 alone would be killer for me). My father used to run marathons and he often said the last 4 miles were the worst and the next couple of days were about sitting and moving as little as possible. If you're interested in more races, I highly recommend the Mackinac Island 8 mile around the island - I've walked the race and it's beautiful!
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