Have you ever thought that you might like to run a half marathon or marathon? For years I thought that 5 or 10 km runs were enough. Fast forward 15 years and I found myself committed to running my first half marathon and 2 years later a full marathon.
At that time, I had very little knowledge of what it took to train for a race. I just ran. My runner friends talked about fartleks, tempo runs, hill repeats, race pace. I had no idea what my race pace was. Everything I found for training had me running, running and doing more running.
My first goal:
Train to finish a half marathon. That’s all, just get across the finish line.
My second goal:
Fitting in all the running with my other fitness activities. At the time, I was teaching 10 hours of fitness and spin classes, plus another 10 hours of Pilates, plus strength training 2 or 3 times per week. Now, my running program was recommending that I run 5 days a week. Fitting it all in was challenging and I was feeling very tired and fatigued.
New goal:
Reduce fatigue and pain.
I knew that if I wanted to achieve my goal of finishing this run, I needed to get through the training healthy, and strong. My answer to this was:
- reduce my running
- keep up teaching because it was my job
- weight training twice a week
- PLUS I added in Pilates 2 or 3 times per week to help with mobility and flexibility.
I felt so much better. Pilates helped me to become much more aware of my body. My posture and breathing, how I would stand and hold my shoulders, how I moved when riding the spin bike, running or lifting weights. I started moving better and feeling much stronger.
New, new goal:
Set a time goal for this half marathon.
I had no idea how fast I could run 21.1 km so I took the average finish time is for women in my age category and deduct a bit of time. My finish time goal was 1hour 55mins. or faster.
Training goal achieved:
Race day arrived. I made it injury free. The combination of strength training, teaching and Pilates had me feeling stronger than I had in many years.
Race day goal:
Run fast, for 21.1km, try not to stop, finish in under 1 hour and 55 mins. I was feeling good about this.
Race day:
My running buddy hauls me up to the front of the second start corral even though I had myself slotted in the 4th corral. Eek! What was I getting myself into?
The gun went off and away we go, running way too fast. I started looking to find a person in the crowd that I can keep pace with. I picked this tall balding man that is easy to see amongst the other runners and just keep running. At 19 km I wasn’t sure how I was going to finish. I had now talked with the man I had been pacing with and he was encouraging me along. We crossed the finish line together, gave each other a hug and a thank you for helping each other achieve our goals for this race.
Race Day Goal Results:
Surpassed – not only did I finish, but I also finished in 1 hour and 47 mins.
Since this first race, I have done many more. Some with more success and some with less. I credit the strength training and Pilates in combination with the running as being why I had such great success with my first half marathon. Other times I have tried to increase the number of runs that I do and for myself, I feel so much better with the cross training.