Hired Help

Hello Internet! I logged into Blogger today and saw that I have a draft post written about running a half-marathon in December 2022, where I never actually started running the race in the post. Maybe I'll post it one day as a candy-bag. But today, I'm here to talk about the last 71 days, not a race that was almost two years ago.

On July 27, 2022, the weather was nice. As I'm not a meteorologist, I usually just pay attention to the temperature and the chance of precipitation, but I recall being told that the dew point was going to be low. And so it was when Justin and I met at 6 to run. He started before me in order to get in 14-15 miles, and I was just trying to get out the door. It was my second double-digit distance run since June 1. I felt like the run was uneventful. Justin, however, was inspired by how "easy" he felt averaging 7:37 pace with me by his side, and started saying ridiculous things, like that I should run the Indianapolis Marathon in November, that I should go pace him, and that he would pay for me to do it. I brushed off his suggestions as "The Runner's High," and thought nothing of it.

A week later, we ran again, and he was persistent. As I do enjoy long runs and general training for the marathon, and didn't find his goal pace (3:00 - 3:15) to be particularly challenging, I started to consider it, and asked him if I could think about it. He didn't want me to wait too long as he didn't want to pay for an expensive flight, so he agreed to give me a month.

A month from August 3 would give me the opportunity to see if I could even train consistently. That has been the biggest struggle since moving to Fredericksburg 3 years ago. On a good week, I'd run twice with Greg during the weekdays, twice on the weekend, and maybe one other time as a workout. On a bad week, I might run two times or less. If I wasn't injured. I just keep getting injured, which I guess is a part of getting old and overdoing it every once in a while. But a month would let me see if I could get some mileage in my legs, and run most days.

Week 1 (August 5 - 11)
The first week of thinking got off to an OK start with a Tuesday workout. But I wasn't feeling it the next day, and actually stopped a run 2 minutes in on Thursday because I was hurting too much. I didn't do much on the weekdays because Greg was out of town and I was trying to watch track live during the Olympics, with some of the races starting at 4:00 AM EST. I was trying to make a jump in my long run, but it was hot and miserable, so I only got in 14.

Weekly summary: 6 runs, 40.84 miles. Long run of 14.1 miles.

Week 2 (August 12 - 18)
Started off easy for two days, then took off Wednesday. Worked out with the group on Thursday, and was planning to stop to go to the bathroom, but then I rolled my ankle really badly and that pain caused me to forget about needing to go to the bathroom. I figured that if I slowed down, it would hurt more, so we ran that workout pretty quickly. I took the rest of the week pretty easy, as I wanted to make sure my ankle wasn't seriously hurt.

Weekly summary: 6 runs, 39.83 miles. Long run of 7.2 miles.

Week 3 (August 19 - 25)
I read the text wrong and missed the workout, so ran a workout on pure hate by myself on the track. My easy days were more like hard days that were slow, as my recovery needs are getting pretty high. These days are only 4 miles, but my heart rate is still pretty high. I worked out a second time this week, on Friday, and almost did about the same thing each day but once on the track and once on the roads. I had great weather for the long run and finished off the week feeling pretty good, especially about the prospects of running the marathon with Justin.

Weekly summary: 7 runs, 53.79 miles. Long run of 16.1 miles.

Justin and my hotel room

Week 4 (August 26 - September 1)
The workout on Wednesday was 40 minutes at marathon pace, and I was pretty nervous about doing that. I probably should have mentioned that in addition to Justin running the marathon, Jared and Shawn are too, albeit with faster goal paces. So when doing these workouts, there's Justin's pace (6:51-7:15), and their paces which are more in the 6:20-6:30 range. I'm not necessarily holding myself back to run with Justin, because I figure he wants me to be in better shape than him, so that it is easy for me to run his marathon pace and I can drag him through the finish if necessary. So, 40 minutes at marathon pace... I knew I was going to run it faster than his goal marathon pace. And I was nervous, because it was a longer effort than I'd done. But the workout went well and I went home resolved to run the race. Greg had told me he could probably get me a free entry from Brooks, as they're a big sponsor. As his nickname would indicate, he did come through with the coupon code and I registered for the race that day. I did another workout on Friday, with a long cooldown, and another solid long run to celebrate the Labor Day weekend. Justin booked my plane ticket on Friday morning. He already had a hotel room booked and I'll bunk with him. 

Weekly summary: 7 runs, 57:08 miles. Long run of 16.8 miles.

That's where the story of my decision making could end. I said to give me a month, and I didn't take that long for me to determine that I could run with some level of consistency and commit myself to training for a marathon on November 9. But I'm also enjoying it a lot. I like training! And apparently it's a lot of fun when it's not super hard. Since Labor Day, I've only taken two days off. I've had two 20-milers that were the slowest of my life, and I'm averaging 60 miles a week for the last four weeks. My goal is to run one workout and one long run a week. Sometimes I do a second workout, sometimes the long run is the workout. Sometimes they go well, sometimes they don't. But I'm having a blast. So to those of you reading this, if you ever want someone to pace you for a marathon, I'll be your hired help. I won't come to Virginia Beach though.

To the finisher go the spoils

Justin and I will fly to Indianapolis on Friday, the day before the race. Shawn is flying up that day too, and Jared is driving with his family. Hopefully we make it to the expo before Cole Hocker leaves, so that he and I can go get vaccinated together afterwards. Then the race is Saturday morning, I plan to celebrate at Giordano's in Downtown Indy, then Justin and I will fly back later that afternoon. Bing-bang-boom. 

I'll try to let you know how it goes sometime within the next two years.