Sunday, November 04, 2007

The hardest thing I've ever done.



I woke up early this morning and headed off for the Bass Pro Shops Inaugral Half-Marathon. The race time temperature at 7 a.m. was 43 degrees and was nice for the entire race. My goal for the race was to finish of course and to finish in under 2 hours was my second goal. I was pretty sure that I wouldn't meet my goal because when I did my training run it took me 2:13 to run 13.1 miles. However, I was setting my sights high. Patrick agreed to run with me the entire race because he had just run the Columbus Half-Marathon two weeks ago.


Mile1-6: Felt good, average pace was between 8:33 and 8:45 . Took water and gel at 6 miles.

Mile7-10 Starting to fatigue a little, average pace 8:45 to 9:00. Took water and another gel pack at 9 miles. At Mile 10 I started to get a little tired.

Mile 10-11-Had to cross over Kansas Expressway for the second time and that hill was hard. By the time I got to the 11 mile mark I was getting ready to quit.

Mile 12-More of the same, fatigue pain in my ankle, ready to be done with this.

Mile 12-13.1 Hardest mile I've ever run. The last 0.2 I ran at 7:48 through the finish line. Official time was 1 hour 58 minutes and 19 secs. I had done it. As I crossed the line I almost started crying. I don't know if it was emotions or just exhaustion.

After the race, I thought "I don't know if I could do a marathon". Maybe I was just feeling tired.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Scott,

I am so proud of you for pushing through and completing your goal! I hope I wasn't bugging you too much there towards the end as I was trying to get you pumped up. I am really glad that I could be there with you. Maybe we can do your first marathon together! Keep running!

Patrick

Scott Griffith said...

Patrick,
Thanks for commenting. I had a blast running with you. You definitely motivated me to give it my all. You are a great friend.