run a half marathon

Following a very hilly course through South and Central Austin, I finished this morning in just over 3 hours (3:04:47 to be precise). I felt great and I finished without injury. I had told myself that I might walk a lot of the course, but I wound up jogging about 12 of the 13 miles.

The race is a great confidence builder for me on my way towards optimum physical health.

I drove the course this morning. It is a beautiful course, but the majority of it is hilly. Some are long and slow and others are more twisty and abrupt.

I also went to Drafthouse to watch Runner’s High. It was a great independent film about a program in Oakland that takes kids who are lacking direction and gives them a goal and the support to achieve it through 5 days per week training for the LA marathon. The director and one of the coaches were there and answered questions afterwards. It was cool.

I have to get up at 4:30AM to get myself awake and meet up with the Austin Fit crowd at 6 for a morning stretch routine and pep talk.

I am looking forward to the race tomorrow morning. Let’s do this.

Easy walk this morning. Workouts have been ceased.

We jogged up hills from Town Lake over to St. Edward’s University. Man, is it pretty up there. You can actually see all of Austin from that hill (I had no idea!).

The group collectively decided that we would do 5 miles instead of 7.5, as the hills were challenging enough. Really, we are winding down now towards the half marathon next weekend. One run this week and definitely nothing after Wednesday.

I am ready to just do this.

I missed the big “test” last weekend, so I did it on Saturday. I did a huge loop around Austin through downtown and completed the 12 miles in about 3:11. I did pretty well overall and I was quite tired. I am quite confident that my body will hold out for the race on February 18th.

Unfortunately, Manton is not going to be able to make it to the race this year due to a schedule conflict. How bout that Cap 10K Goal, Manton?

This weekend, I was in the D.C. area at a conference so I wasn’t able to do the GRAND FINAL TEST of 12 miles that Austin Fit did yesterday. I intend to try to find a time to do it this week somehow. That will tell me the truth about how February 18th is going to go.

I’m getting excited to get on with this race. Let’s get it over with, I tell ya! :) Nah, it will be fun. Race day energy from the other runners and the crowd out along the course is really cool.

In keeping with the suggested Austin Fit schedule, I walked to Whole Foods Market on 6th this morning. In the attached photo, you can see the view of downtown as Lamar winds its way in that direction. I took a nice break at the Starbucks on 5th, did some ruminating in my new Moleskin notebook, and then walked back.

This morning, I took a 10.25 mile stroll (well, around 15 min/mile) with my RED iPod Nano, Kathy Sierra, Jim Coudal, and Jason Fried. It took me 2:36 to complete. I actually felt pretty good up until about 8 miles. The last two were more painful as the back, shoulders, and hips started to wear/tighten. I did some good stretching on the floor when I got back. Besides, where else would I be but on the floor after that walk? The AT&T Austin Half Marathon is on February 18th, so I still have a good amount of time. In fact, their web page timer, actually says I have exactly “56 days, 13 hours, 54 minutes and 30 seconds” to go until the race starts.

On Saturday morning, I rolled out of bed at 6:30 to go downtown for Austin Fit. My plan was to roll with the walking group, which was something I had never done before. The schedule said that everyone was going to do 9 miles + drills. I wanted to go as slow as possible because I had been out of the running game for many weeks. As it happens, the half marathon group has no walkers. The walkers don’t even meet with the rest of the crowd, they skip the presentation and head out from the Sonic next to TXDOT. I had no idea about this.

So there I was hovering at the back of the Half Marathon group hoping that somebody there was a walker…but no such luck. As it happens, there were two nice ladies that normally take up the back of the pack and they welcomed me into their group. They said they usually do 8/1s (meaning they jog 8 minutes, walk 1 minute), so that should make things easier. However, I did not intend to run that morning, just walk. It appeared that I had no choice. I was going to need to run with the back-of-the-packers.

It was a long haul. I stayed with the ladies until near the end when they decided they were going to finish up by walking the last mile. By that point, I just wanted to finish the thing! I jogged on ahead to the end of the trail, completing my longest run of 2006 in just under 2 hours and 20 minutes!

My calves and Achilles (especially on the right) were very tight, but I did it! I felt great afterwards (mentally, not physically) having accomplished so much. I allowed myself a few luxuries of dining that day as a reward because I knew that I had created at least a 1200 calorie deficit in the early morning hours.

Sunday has been a day of rest, but I am ready to start the week with my Monday run tomorrow morning. Let’s get on with it!

I’ve actually run a half marathon here in Austin twice in my life so far.

I was never really sure I was going to run the actual race this time around, but I wanted to do the training to improve my health at least. During the course of my training this season, I had a period of being sick and I also had an injured leg for several weeks. I’ve recently started walking every day.

So I was thinking…(dangerous, i know)

What if I just walked the entire half marathon? I’ll take the remaining time I have left before the race and train. On the day of, I’ll plan to walk it. If I feel good and I want to run for awhile, nothing will be stopping me. I think I’m going to sign up.