The Odyssey

The Odyssey is a tale of a long voyage home, which has many trials and tribulations along the way, making the ending even more sweet. My 1/2 marathon I labeled the Odyssey for obvious reasons. And I want to share the whole story!

Signing Up:
As some of you know I am training for triathlons, but I was approached by my supervising PT wanting me to run a 1/2 marathon with her. When I accepted the challenge I knew for about 4-5 months that I was going to be running 13.1 miles and the training started. I ultimately decided that I wanted to use this as something to shoot for and be a good reason to continue to train during the winter months.

Training:
My training consisted of mainly running along Flintridge, in the Woodlands. It is known in the running/ triathlon circles as a road with fairly steep hills which provided a strong running challenge. Even though it is hard, I felt comfortable running it. I would run predominantly two short runs during the week which lasted about 30-45 minutes. On the weekends I would run longer runs and on every-other weekend is when I would increase milage, usually about 2 miles on each of those. The week leading up to the race I only ran once and had one nice long walk with my beautiful wife.

The Day of the Race:
PRE-RACE: The Race started at 7:00AM. Which means I had to get there around 6:15, leave the house around 5:30 and had to get up around 4:30. Now normally I wouldn't need that much time to get up and get going, but when you are about to run 13.1 miles you need to handle the bodily functions that you wouldn't want to handle in the middle of the race. I get to the event and get a text from my running partner which stated that she wasn't going to be making it... I was on my own. Probably worked out better, I will explain more later.... After standing in line waiting to use the restroom, I have a nervous bladder (TMI? oh well), I got the starting line about 2 minutes prior to the gun going off. I walked my way up to where I thought I should be, looked to my left and saw a co-worker and friend who was running the 1/2 marathon too. (She has 3 kids, didn't get to run for 2 months prior to the race and she finished! I'm jealous) BOOM the gun goes off....And Nothing happens. We are so far back we didn't cross over the sensor to start our chip until 2+ minutes after the gun went off.
RACE: We ran the first 4-5 miles together, which was good because I didn't get to warm up very well. We averaged about a 10:30/mile pace over that span which allowed me to ease into this race... Remember me telling you that my boss didn't show up and it was a good thing. See, she is a faster runner than I am and was probably going to push me for a lot faster pace than me and my other co-worker ran initially... I left my co-worker about the 5 mile mark, with her blessing, I was off! And started to pick up my pace. I got to about the 7.5 mile mark and experienced a very sharp pain in my left forefoot. It lasted about a mile and a half, and I needed to stop occasionally. I wasn't going to let it end my day. I pushed through. I ran roughly a pace of 9:30/mile pace for the last 8 miles, even with the foot pain. Around mile 9 it started to rain, 9.5 it rained a little harder. After the rain stopped about a 1/4 mile later, it was really a blur until about the 12 mile mark. Between miles 10-12 I really don't remember much, I was just putting one in front of the other. At mile 12 I looked at my watch and realized "I ONLY HAVE ONE MILE LEFT!" Then I looked again and realized my goal was achievable, I had 10 minutes to make it 1.1 miles.
THE FINISH: The last mile I ran my fastest mile of the entire race, 9:18! The last .1 made it really interesting. I knew I was going to be cutting it close. I start my final kick down the finish line. I see my family standing there cheering me on and I start to sprint. I see cones lining the finish line and thinking that is the final few feet I am in full sprint... well the best sprint I could muster up after running 13 miles... I reach the cones and look ahead and see that the finish line isn't for another 50 yards and if I continued on my sprint my finish line photo would have been me puking! So I coasted the final 30-40 yards and did not puke. But I was happy, I made my goal by 21 seconds! I set a goal and achieved it.
SUPPORT: The support I received on Facebook and on the course was amazing. I couldn't have done it without you all. This is an accomplishment I will never forget and you were a part of that...

THANK YOU.

Wade
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