Eric’s Dream

Well I “finished” the 1/2 marathon.  I was definitely last of the 55 runners yesterday morning, by a good 20 minutes, but I made it.  I don’t regret that I was there yesterday, I only regret that I did not train appropriately. My time was 2:48.  At the half way mark my time was 1hr 10 min, but right after that I picked up a little fig newton bar at a water station and boy that did not sit right in my stomach at all.  At the end of 8 miles, I decided to walk a bit because my heart rate would not come down below 175.  At the 9 mile mark, I thought I would just try to run 3 min, then walk 3 min.  I did one series of that and then I just walked the rest of the way.  I felt like crap and knew I was getting dehydrated and what not and figured it wasn’t worth it to push myself any harder.  Walking the last couple of miles ended up being a mental challenge in and of itself.  I was long behind any of the other runners and figured, I just needed to finish one way or another.  I did think of the one post you wrote to me Eric when you just said FINISH, FINISH,FINISH!  So I figured I better.  I was so thankful when I did come upon the finish line they were doing a “munchkin run” at the same time, so about 40-50 little kids were running around the block as fast as they could, and I kind of walked through the finish area amongst all that mayhem and all the attention was more so on them. 

There were many moments in those last few miles that I was telling myself how crazy I was for doing this, and never again.  What also felt embarassing was that they have someone riding bike behind the last runner.  It was someone I know that has done 1/2 marathons herself.  I felt so bad she had to ride right behind me for almost 3 hours, and I held her and the other route workers up a good 20 minutes after the runner ahead of me.  Oh well.  One time I apologized to her and she said “hey, don’t worry about it, at least you are here doing this and didn’t drop out like your other two friends”.   That was another thing I kept repeating to myself, was “at least I am doing this…..and didn’t quit” .

Well enough ramble about that, my legs are pretty sore today and I am pretty sure I am going to lose a couple of toenails again.  It was a good experience overall, and it is making me feel motivated to try harder to lose this weight so I can actually “run” an entire 1/2 marathon someday.  Right now, I am too tired and sore to even imagine what it would be like to actually train and run a full marathon…..yuck.   But maybe once all this wears off, I will feel differently.  It was definitely a learning experience. 

Now, I just need to focus more on losing this 50 lbs that needs to come off , and set some more goals.