No training, no stretching, just show up in flip flops and cargo shorts. That was my first half-marathon, yesterday morning.
The plan was to stop every mile and stretch and walk to break up the steady wear-down. Once I started running, I ended up moving past each mile marker until 12.x when I walked a couple hundred feet. The first 6 miles were easy, as I routinely run 5-6 miles in my lunch break at work. I forced myself to keep a slow, steady pace, even as hundreds of runners passed me.
By mile 3, I developed a nice runners’ high.
Mile 7 was a new record, as I have never run more than 6.1 miles in a single day.
By mile 8, my slow pace was paying off. I kept a steady pace on uphills, and I started to pass people regularly.
Mile 9 stretch out a little longer than I expected. Mile 10 was noticeably longer, and by 11, I was pretty sure the distances were increasing on an exponential curve. I kept a steady pace, passing other runners constantly.
Towards the end of mile 12, I developed a pain in my right hip, possibly due to excessive heel-strike. I ran until the pain hit redline, then slowed to a walk. It felt like my feet were wheels rolling downhill and I was helpless to stop them. Once my feet had regained some range-of-motion (less than a quarter mile) I picked up the race again, and ran to the finish.
For the last minute, I was running parallel with another man and his trainer, who was encouraging him to sprint to finish. I took his words for my own, and sprinted the last couple hundred feet through the finish line. I had no conscious control of my feet at that point; the sensation was elated, powerful, predatory, hungry, joyful, laughing. I remember laughing as I crossed the finish line. I couldn’t feel my feet, but it was all good. Everything was good.
Until I found stairs. Stairs were a problem.
I sat and saved the run into Google Tracks, then went and found a banana and free beer. The beer started to kill the runners’ high, so I left it on a random table and went wandering around the city barefoot but not naked.
Equipment list:
- Flip flops
- Cargo shorts and techwick shirt
- Music player and headphones
- Cash, ID, insurance and keys
- 20 oz water
- 2 aspirin, 1 energy gum, and a pinch of raw tobacco
- Phone, GPS recording the track
Yes, I ran in flip flops. I received a lot of commentary; mostly favorable, some sarcastic. “Are you sure you’re ready for this race?” It was all good. I had no blisters, no injuries, and my feet were barely sore. The flip flops, sadly, are mostly gone by after a few years of constant use. It’s too bad; they cost $1.83.
Around mile 12, when I had to slow to a walk, I took out an aspirin and put it in my mouth to swallow it with some of the water. The moment I got the taste of it, I reflexively spit it out. Bad stuff, not the chemical for helping a race.
I then tried a small pinch of tobacco. It was dried, organic smoking tobacco that I picked up from a small smoke shop in Burlington, VT, some months ago. I chewed it up to let the salivary enzymes break down and release the chemicals, and held it in my mouth through the end of the race. The thought was to test the theory that tobacco would help sports performance in this context and method of usage. It does.
I would have rather used fresh leaves, but I don’t know where to source them locally. I’ve never tried tobacco in any form before, other than tasting a tiny pinch last week to make sure I wasn’t deathly allergic to the stuff. Before anyone gets their pants in a knot over tobacco usage; I read up on the health effects of tobacco, positive and negative, and made my own educated decision. I’ll probably post a lengthy post on this topic later.
My time was 2:28. My goal was to finish under 3 hours.