Kneezy Runs a Half – A half marathon recap

Personal

November 13, 2013

(For those confused about the title of the post, my husband, John’s instagram name is Jneezyisripped. I started a hashtag for my own fitness purposes #kneezyisnotripped and then #kneezyrunsahalf to track my progress and keep myself accountable. I’m so glad I did, because if I hadn’t, I might not have been too ashamed to quit and may not have run the race!) 

I will be honest with you guys…I was somewhat nervous about the race! I had only ever run a four mile fun run before (and that I did for the beer and taco truck afterward), and I didn’t train as well or as much as I should have leading up to this half marathon. I ran about once a week for 8 weeks. Pretty much the only runs I did were the long runs I instagrammed to motivate myself. In my defense, I was in the thick of my busiest season…Fall Wedding Season, and I was trying to turn around all of my weddings within a week (or two at most), manage a growing wedding blog, and plan a workshop at the same time. Three of those things I’d never done before (race training, wedding blog, workshop), and I had no idea what I was in for this Fall! We traveled about 4500 miles between September and October and had only one weekend at home. It was CRAY you guys. I was super nervous I was too undertrained. I didn’t actually register for the race until the week of, and it did cross my mind a couple times that I could just save my money and not do it. But since I had already blogged, instagrammed, and Facebooked about it, I felt way too ashamed to quit and not do it, so I registered (don’t ever wait til the last minute unless you want to pay a bajillion dollars to race), and just crossed my fingers for a decent experience.

I woke up the morning of the half marathon with my stomach in knots. You know how you sometimes have a stomach ache and it WAKES YOU UP? That’s what happened. If you ever decide to run a race and think about carb loading in the days ahead of the race, eat super bland foods, like rice and veggies. The first hour or two of the morning were NOT pretty because, let’s be real…I had a really bad upset stomach from eating Olive Garden and potato cakes the day before! I used the bathroom more times than is really normal leading up to the race and just crossed my fingers I wouldn’t be the person who pooped their pants out at the race! How embarrassing would that be?? I think I would die! And I would feel so bad for anyone who had to run down wind of me…haha.

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Luckily my guts kept it under control and there was no humiliating scene. Right before I lined up to race I downed a Gatorade prime pre workout drink and then stuck my gel chews and gu into my sports bra. I later saw a lot of people with running belts and stuff like that…obviously they had to be pretty seasoned runners because I never even knew I could GET a running belt to stash my snacks!! Honestly though. I like to run light, so I can’t imagine I would really want a belt flopping around while I ran., but who knows?

Right before the race started the sun had just come up and it was still FREEZING. I totally wish I had worn gloves, but at the same time, it definitely warmed up midway through the race and gloves would have been something I needed to take off and stash somewhere. I went over and lined up toward the middle of the pack with the pace group I thought I would be finishing with. On all of my long runs I had run close to an 11 minute mile (sometimes a little more) and I had read that I would probably need to add extra time onto my typical mph to account for the fact that the race was longer than I had ever run before. So I assumed I would be pretty lucky to actually finish with the pace group and that running with them would keep me motivated to finish on time. In the end, they did keep me motivated, but not in the way I thought! Around mile 1 or 2 I was running a pretty slow and easy pace (I felt AMAZING thanks to the Reese’s Cup and Gatorade sugar juice I drank prior to the start) and still actually managed to pass the group. At this point, tons of people were passing each other. It was a little bit difficult to not try to keep up with or “race” the people running around me because I just HATE being passed (even when I’m driving…it’s a sickness), but I told myself “slow and steady wins the race” and seriously, this was so true because as I got farther and farther into the race, the pack of people running thinned out A LOT, and eventually I was passing people who had run WAY past me closer to the start of the race. It just goes to show, if your goal is to finish at a certain time, or run the whole race without stopping, start SLOW and reserve your energy!!

I kept using the pace group to gauge my own pace since my app wasn’t announcing my pace to me every five miles like it’s supposed to. I would look back every few minutes or so to see if they were right up behind me, and eventually I couldn’t even see them anymore! That felt pretty awesome. For the first seven miles, everything was great! Around 7.5, my right knee started hurting me. I have had knee problems off and on when I run and exercise for a few years, but hadn’t had any trouble during any of my long training runs up until the Tuesday before the race. At that point, the pain wasn’t terrible, so I just focused on my breathing, and trucked on. I started to get tired closer to mile 8, so I sucked down a GU (which was interesting…eating one made me gag and my eyes water!) and then kept at it. Those things are so gross to eat, but I couldn’t have made it without them! I had two of those and a pack of Gatorade energy chews, which in my opinion are much more palatable than GU. Gu = EW. Around mile 8 was also when I saw John, and our friend Kim, who had drive in from Richmond to surprise me! From far away I couldn’t tell it was them actually…I saw John first, and then I saw the sign Kim made for me and was like wait, who is that??? Then I saw her and got excited! Seeing them was just the boost I needed to get myself going again.

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Once I got to mile 10 (after stopping at every single water station, chugging, and delighting in getting to litter) I told myself “Okay, this is it. Anything after this is a personal record”. The longest I’d run up to this was a 10.37 mile run almost four weeks ago. Part of my mind had told me “If you can run ten miles, you can run three more, easy as pie”. The reality was, the last one and a half were the HARDEST TWO MILES I’VE EVER RUN IN MY LIFE. I probably picked up my pace a little too much around mile 10-11.5 because I was getting excited to finish, but my knee was still bothering me and the pain had started to intensify. I’ve never run through that kind of pain before…on my training runs I hadn’t experienced much pain at all. After the 10 mile run I had done? No pain at all. I was totally fine and not sore at all the next day. If it had been a normal day, I would have stopped running fearing injury but in my head I told myself it was do or die and this was what I trained so long for…I wasn’t going to stop unless my leg fell off. Around mile 11 my right leg started cramping up, but I ignored it and kept on going. At mile 12, I had one headphone so I could hear the volunteers and random supporters cheering me on and offering support as I passed…at that point I really needed it to finish!

At 11.5 I saw a group of people who had passed me way earlier in the race, so naturally I decided to speed up on my busted legs and try to get past them…I did, but then my left leg started cramping up too, and I ended up running the last leg of the race in a world of pain. There was a point in the race when I almost started crying. It wasn’t because I didn’t think I could do it…I knew I could do it no matter what else started hurting…I mean, who comes 12 miles to stop running??? I felt the tears coming on moreso because I knew I could do it but I knew it was going to suck and I had at least ten more minutes of hating life to go.

The last half mile of the race I was running very close with one lady. I was making a lot of noises (breathing loud, whining under my breath, panting, moaning, sniffling, etc) and she started to encourage me and that helped a lot. When we rounded the corner and made our way onto the track (the race ended on the middle of the track inside of the stadium), I tried my best to sprint as hard as I could to the finish, but my legs were holding me back. I had to slow down a lot as I rounded the curve of the track so I could try to sprint through the finish line, but I wasn’t able to sprint my best. I was so disoriented when I crossed the finish line! I thought it would be this amazing moment of jubilation and I had pictured myself so many times crossing the finish line and crying tears of joy, but I didn’t! I slowed down to a complete stop, SNATCHED my medal (sorry about that to whoever handed it to me…I don’t know what I was doing!!), and then wandered around aimlessly until John and my friends told me to go get a water and a banana. It wasn’t what I pictured, and honestly I’m still a little disappointed I worked so hard and didn’t have that “moment” I expected, but I did feel amazing later on thinking about my accomplishment, and today as I write this, I just feel so in awe of the fact that I did it and not only did I do it, I beat my personal record and pushed through a lot of pain to make it happen. I always think of myself as someone who is not athletic, who is not good at dedicating myself to working out and not giving up, but I did this and I’m really proud of myself!

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So what’s next? I had told myself I wanted to run this half, then train for the Shamrock Marathon in March (at one point I deluded myself into thinking I should look into the requirements to qualify for the Boston Marathon…then I saw what they were and laughed. And laughed), but I honestly am not sure yet if I can do it. Running this half was really tough, especially toward the end. Right now I can’t imagine running LONGER than I ran in the half as a training run and living to tell about it. Running a marathon is one of my life goals though (because I’m crazy), so I may decide to do it. I need to let my knee rest up for a few days though so I can determine whether or not I have a real injury I need to have taken care of! As of the day I’m writing this (Monday), it’s swollen and I can’t put my whole weight on it.

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Whether or not I run a full marathon or ever run a race again, I feel like I accomplished something really cool, and I am so proud of myself, and thankful for all of my friends who supported me, sent encouraging messages and texts, and came out to cheer me on. I am so glad I did this race because I will remember it for a lifetime!

Leave a Comment

  1. Kim says:

    I am still so proud of you – and so glad you didn’t really poop your pants 🙂 You ran a freakin’ HALF MARATHON.

  2. Melanie Reilly says:

    Ahh this is so inspiring for me because I really want to run a half too but I’m pretty unathletic. Congrats on finishing your first one strong!

  3. Is it weird that I teared up while reading this? I hope not, because I totally did. SO PROUD of you, girl. You kicked major ass, there were no poop emergencies, and YOU DID EET! xoxoxox

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