Todd's Half Marathon

Todd emailed this out January 14, and I have been meaning to get it on the blog for some time. I was very proud of him for doing the half marathon. Neither of us were runners in college or before much at all. I know it took a lot of commitment on his part to do a half marathon. From here down is his email.

Well the results are in. 3:01:17 for the half-marathon. Not a bad start considering I started training less than two months ago. And it gives me something to shoot for for my next half-marathon.

I didn't feel strong at all the first four to five miles, which was unusual. That said, I was right at 2:15 pace through mile five but started to fade badly around mile six and walked a good bit up until mile eight. I suppose that was to be expected considering my longest training run had been about six miles.Now that I'm suffering the various 350-pound coworkers with the Whataburger cups on their desks saying, "I think I could walk it in three hours! Three hours?Really? Wow? I bet I could beat that time." I think I've taken away some lessons learned.

-I only used two gels during the race, one at mile 5 and one at mile 10. A training partner suggested using three throughout the half-marathon next time to have some needed energy at the finish.

-The last mile was brutal. Since the majority of the mile 8 to mile 11 was uphill I blew up most of my energy in that part when I should have geared down.

-"Gearing down" was a major theme. I hit the first mile marker in less than 9 minutes, I should have paced it a little bit better and I may have been in better shape.

-I did feel good about my hydration and tried to slow down and drink plentifully at each water station, which was about every mile and a half. The weather was perfect though so that helped a lot I think.

-The synthetic Asics socks I used for the race made a huge difference in foot comfort and sweat absorption. My feet felt lighter than during my training runs with cotton socks.

-Nerves. When I would reach the half-mile point of each mile I felt like I was going to throw up. It may have been the banana in the morning but I doubt it. I felt very nervous not knowing what to expect but now that I've been through this race with nearly 26,000 people I think I'm going to be much more prepared for subsequent races and be able to keep up my pace. Overall I'm thrilled that I did it and looking forward to a possible half-marathon in Tucson in March!

Best to you all!

--Todd (posted by Robert)