Dean Karnazes started his Endurance 50 campaign to run 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days. He started yesterday in St Charles, MO which he ran in 3:51:13. The two closest marathons to me are the Cleveland Marathon course on Friday 10/20, or perhaps the New York City Marathon on 11/5. The NYC Marathon would be with thousands of people. I would like one of the smaller ones. I think it would be fun. According to the information on the web site, the marathons will be run in 4:30-5:00 hours at 10:00 to 11:40 minute per mile pace. So far the longest run I have done was a half marathon (yesterday) which I finished in 2:21:16. I think I could have done it faster, but since it was my first, I paced myself. If I sign up for the Cleveland run, I think I could at leat finish the first half if he goes at the slower pace (4:30-5:00 hours). If he takes off and runs it at the pace he ran the first race at (3:51 hours), I would left in the dust gasping for breath. I still have a month of training runs. I will probably have some improvement by then. I have been training to be ready to run the Las Vegas Marathon on December 10th, though I haven’t actually registered for yet. But I will be ready.
One thing to remember is that he will have run quite a few marathons by the time he gets to Cleveland. He may be slowing down some by that time out of exhaustion. I will keep an eye on the times that he is running the courses at. Who knows, by October 20th, I might be ready to try going the full 26.2 miles, if he goes at closer to the 5 hour pace.
I ran my first half marathon today. Actually it was my first race of any kind. I really only started running about a month and a half ago. I went to the marathon expecting to run somewhere between 2 hours 30 minutes, and 3 hours. My main goal was to finish. I ended up finishing with a time of 2 hours 21 minutes and 16 seconds!
I got out of bed at 5:30am and started getting ready. This being my first race, I didn’t really know what to expect. I took a fanny pack stuffed with fun size Snickers Bars, a hat, my mp3 player. My wife helped me pin my number to the front of my shirt. I wore an old t-shirt that I didn’t care about over my running shirt. I considered wearing some old sweat pants, but walking outside in my shorts, it didn’t feel that cold.
I left the house at about 6:45am. I arrived at Frontier Field about 7:30am and parked. I took a shuttle over to the starting line. There were tons of people all waiting for the race to begin. There were a bunch of port-a-potties, and lines grew quickly as the race start came nearer. I found my friend who was also going to run the half marathon. She was suprised that I was going to run it. They first started the full marathon, relay marathon, and wheelchair marathon at 8:00am. The half marathon started at 8:15am. I took off my t-shirt, and stuck it off to the side. I guess Goodwill or someone can have it.
I ran along side my friend for maybe half a mile, but we were going faster then I wanted to go. I had planned on keeping my heart rate below 150 (70% Karvonen). As it was, I was having a hard enough time as it was keeping it below 158 (75% Karvonen). I told her to go on ahead, and run her pace. I slowed down and began to run/jog/walk. I saw her slowly move out of sight. I put on my mp3 headphones, and began listening to an audio book that I had made of Russel Taylor’s The Looniness Of The Long Distance Runner-An Unfit Londoner’s Attempt To Run The New York City Marathon From Scratch. Many people were passing me, but I was okay with that. I want to run my pace. I was mananging to keep my heart rate in the high 150s. My heart rate didn’t see much of the 140s during the race. I kept going. Eventually, my heart rate was going into the low 160s. Every couple of miles there were water stations. A few even Gatorade. I thought some were supposed to have GU, but I never saw any. I have read about Gu, and I wanted to try it. I got water at some, and a little Gatorade. About halfway I saw my friend ahead of me. And shortly I caught up with her. She was pluggin along doing a race-walk kind of thing. I talked to her for a few seconds, and then took off. I was completely surprised to have seen her again before the finish line. I knew that last year she had a time of around 2:24, and she is a regular runner. And I have been running less than two months.
There was woman that I was keeping keeping the approximately same pace with. I would pass her, she would pass me. We were also both taking short walking breaks (following Jeff Galloway’s advice). She said she finished the half marathon last year in around 2:22, and she expected to finish this one in pretty close to the same time. So at least I knew what pace I was on. I was getting tired, but I kept going. I had a motorcycle cop get ticked off at me. I was running down a path through a park. I head some chirping noises. I wasn’t sure where they were coming from. I heard them again. I pulled off one of my ear buds, and looked around. Apparently a wheelchair racer was coming up from behind me. I moved out of the way. I guess they get police escorts. The cop gave me a dirty look and rode on. The distance that my Polar RS200sd was giving me was less than the signs were telling me that I had covered. I still need to calibrate it though. Pretty soon I was within a mile of the finish. I kept going. Then I was coming into the stadium. I crossed the finish line with a time of 2:21:16. Yeah, I still finished low in the standings (even within age group), but then I bet that every single person that finished ahead of me has been running for more than two months!
I walked around for a while and waited for my friend to finish. She finished about 7 minutes behind me. We headed up to the food. They had apples, bagels, donut holes, cheese pizza, water, orange juice, bananas, and warm pop. They also had a bag of danishes, but they were covered with yellow jacket bees. According to my heart monitor watch I burned over 2750 calories. Wow! I ate a couple slices of pizza, a banana, 4 donut holes, and drank a bottle of orange juice. There was also a lady handing out $5 coupons for Chili’s restaurant, so I took one. We signed up for a massage, and I got my calves massaged. They felt better for a little while. I went and sat down for a bit, and we watched the first marathoners cross the finish line. After a while I limped to my car and drove home.
When I got home, I grabbed a Diet Pepsi, and climbed into a hot bath to soak for a while. Then I climbed into bed and took a long nap. My legs are sore!
One thing that has occured to me was that I ran a fast enough pace that I could maybe keep up with Dean Karnazes for one of the Endurance 50 runs. At least for half of it. I will have to investigate.
To celebrate the completion of my first half marathon, my wife and I went out for dinner, and used the $5 coupon for Chili’s. I wonder how many calories I ate? Probably less than the 2750. 
Tomorrow’s my first race. I am not thinking of it as a race as my goal is simply to finish. I am using it more of a training run. Anyway, after my aikido class, I went and picked up my runner’s packet and goody bag.
The runner’s packet had some various papers including a schedule, and information about the sponsors. It also included my race number which had the little chip tag or whatever it’s called taped to the back. The envelope also included safetly pins to attached the number to the front of my shirt.
The goody bag all kinds of stuff. First of all it had my shirt (long sleeve, blech!). There were also some samples. There was a Snickers Marathon Energy Bar. Not sure how it is different than a regular Snickers Bar other than the shape. I was thinking about taking a couple regular Snickers Bars with me for the race tomorrow. I will have to compare ingredients and nutrition facts. There were also a couple small tubes of Aquafresh Extreme Clean. There was a small bag of Carolina brown rice, a Nature Valley Sweet & Salty Nut Granola Bar, a small packet of Biofreeze pain relieving gel, a Band-Aid, a couple Salonpas pain relieving pathes, a small packet of Sports Wax, a couple pens, candys, and plastic bags. There were also a ton of coupons, invites for other races. There were also a couple cool little things such as a Race Your Race Chart from Runner’s World, and a training log book advertising a new made for cable movie titled Four Minutes.
The start of the race is about a mile from the finish line. My wife is going to drive to Frontier Field, and park and wait for me there. I think there are shuttles to take runners to the starting line. If not, I will walk. I not sure what the temperature will be in the morning. I will probably where sweat pants and a t-shirt over my running shorts, and shirt. The sweat pants are old, and are pretty worn out anyway. So if I wear them the starting line, I can chuck when the race starts. The T-shirt is also one I don’t really care about. I got tons of t-shirts.
I am a little nervous as I have never done one of these. So I am not quite sure how everything is done. I am just going to try and have fun, and do my best.
I have been debating how to pace myself for the half marathon on Sunday. Since this will be my first half marathon (my first of any kind of race actually), my main goal is to finish. I have been training mostly keeping my heart rate below 150 (70% Karvonen Method, 78% simple). I may start off there, maybe going up to 158 (75% Karvonen, 81% simple) as the race progresses. I am already planning on alternating between running and brisk walking. I guess I will see how I feel and make the decision on the run. Part of me would like to get a good time, but part of mee sees this event more as a training run, and a stepping stone to a full marathon. I am still working on building an aerobic base for running. My aerobic speed has been slowly increasing, and I have been able to maintain slightly faster speeds while keeping my heart rate below 150. Heart monitors are really cool! We will see. At least it is supposed to be nice weather! Look at the times for the runners last year in my age group, I will likely be near the bottom (but at least not dead last). And there should be plenty of people from other age groups behind me. Since I have never run one of these, I have no idea what to expect. Maybe I will go faster than I think. I am guesstimating a finish time somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00. But who knows. Maybe I will find a rhythm, and flow with the other runners, and finish faster. While I would like to finish closer to 2:30, I may finish closer to 3:00. But then I really only started running about a month and a half ago.
Since I am training for a full marathon in December, I have been following a training schedule from Hal Higdon’s book How To Train. I had already been running kind of randomly when I jumped into the schedule, and due to the timing of the marathon, I jumped into the schedule at week 5. I ran 3 miles on Tuesday, 5 miles on Wednesday, and 3 miles last night. Today is scheduled as a rest day, and the schedule has me doing 6 miles tomorrow, and 9 miles on Sunday. But since I am running the half marathon on Sunday, I will probably take both today and tomorrow as rest days, and have fresh legs for the half marathon on Sunday. I might do some walking, but no running. I do have an aikido class tomorrow morning, but that isn’t running.