I've been training for the last three months, but I haven't been training as hard as I would like what with working full-time and taking care of household chores. According to my training plan, I was supposed to do 33 runs, but I only did 17 runs or so. Epic fail on following the plan, but I was pretty confident that I would at least finish after completing two 11 mile runs in the last two weeks.
Ready or not, race day finally arrived, and strangely enough, I wasn't nervous at all. I had no problem falling asleep last night at a decent hour, and this morning felt like any other morning as I ate my oatmeal and drank my coffee.
We were supposed to arrive at the running area to meet my other running teammates for a group photo, but the tube ride took much longer than anticipated what with all the people heading towards the half-marathon. Then I had to stop by the porta-loos, which had a huge queue, so we basically missed out on the group photo altogether. Sad.
I found my corral, which was completely packed with people. I felt a bit like cattle as they guided us closer and closer to the start line, but we were moving so slowly that J was following along on the spectator side and acting as my own personal paparazzo.
Why am I always the smallest person anywhere I go?
We finally got the go ahead to start running, and that's just what I did.
I was careful to watch my pace since I had to keep it up for about 2 hours or so, and I enjoyed looking around as I ran through the streets of London. It was a bit surreal running past Big Ben, and it was at this moment I felt like a true Londoner.
There weren't many spectators out, and I just chugged along with my music blasting. It was a beautiful course even though there were a bit too many slow inclines for my taste. There were lots of water stations, and I had Gu (energy gels) at miles 5 and 9 to keep me going. My only complaint about the course is that it was much too crowded. I was never able to find my groove and just sink into my running - I had to weave and dodge a lot even though there wasn't much room to manuever.
It was also kind of scary seeing people who had pushed themselves too hard and were being tended to by paramedics on the side of the course. One guy was completely laid out and unconscious with an oxygen mask on and a blanket covering his body. Yikes.
My right calf started to cramp up around mile 11, and I took a few walking breaks to see if I could walk it off, but it seemed like the cramp was here to stay so I decided to just keep on running. I also realized that I wasn't going to meet my time goal of under 2 hours so I decided to slow down the pace and just enjoy the rest of the run.
I finished hard and with a smile on my face, and I gave a two thumbs up to the race photographer at the finish. I'm such a nerd.
In any case, my Garmin tells me it took me 2:04 to run 13.3 miles. Where did the extra 0.2 miles come from?! I thought it was supposed to be only 13.1! In any case, I won't know my official time for a few more days, but it was a good first half-marathon, and I'm definitely tempted to sign up for another one.
What's next on the horizon? A Runaway Bride 5k towards the end of November that I'm running for fun with some of my friends. I can't wait.
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