Today, I learned how to manage endurance running when at the limit of my capabilities.
I’d love to say it was because I performed some heroic feat of endurance, but no. Not at all, It was because I was an idiot. My wife and I had signed up for the San Diego Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon a few months ago, and after the Great Saunter 2022 4 weeks ago, I hadn’t trained. At all. Nor had I really prior. So I came to SD to support her while she ran, and then I figured ‘you know what, I’ll bib up and just walk the course.’
Suuuuure.
I am pleased to say that I finished the half in 3 hours on the dot. That’s abysmally slow for a ‘run’ - but it’s not terrible for a guy in his 50s who isn’t a regular runner, and it’s pretty good for not having done any training.
The most important things I learned, though - to listen to my body. Prior to this, I’ve not really tried to run at my limit for any length of time - I’ve been able to just stop if I hit that point and run again some other time. The first half-marathon I ran, I was in pretty good shape - so while I was super exhausted, because I did in fact run or jog the whole way, I completed it without feeling like I was in any danger of injury. Since then, I’ve had knee surgery, and had COVID-19, and wrenched an ankle the past January in a fall, and gotten older.
I jogged the first 4.5 miles. After that, I stopped to use a restroom, and then continued to jog to approximately mile 7. Once there, I felt I was nearing unsustainable pace, so I started walking, switching back to a jog about 65% of the time.
At mile 9, I realized I had an incipient cramp developing in my right calf, so I immediately slowed back to a walk. For the next mile, I tried to jog several times, but in all cases, ended up aborting due to the cramp. At right around the 10 mile mark there was a station offering Biofreeze (basically, a menthol spray for muscle soothing) and I had them douse my calves and left glute - and that got me back to a jog until around mile 11.5.
At that point, I accepted the walk, and finished the race ‘power walking’. At the 13 mile mark, with .1 to go, I jogged it in, accepting some pain in the right leg to make it across the line at faster than a walking pace. Second half marathon down.
I am entered in the New York full marathon this year, and am starting training in a couple weeks. Having this under my belt - basically, finishing the half at a pace that I’d be fine finishing the full at, with *no training* - is a huge psychological support to me as I move into training. That plus having walked 34 miles in the (hard) rain a few weeks ago in one shot - those two experiences tell me ‘you can do this.’
We’ll see!