I was never very good at long-distance running growing up. I played tennis and was great for short sprints, but couldn't do much more than a mile; my high-school mile times were usually around 9:00, and that was with maximum effort. In March 2011, at the age of 25, I started running again to try to stay in shape. My wife bought me some Vibrams for my birthday, and I was determined to put them to use. I was thinking of possibly running in a 5K in the future, and probably not much more than that. My first few runs were pretty bad; I couldn't keep a steady pace for a full mile, so I would alternate running for a few minutes and walking for 30 seconds. After a few weeks I could do this for 3-4 miles.
Then one day my wife came running with me. Her pace was significantly slower than mine, so I slowed down to stay with her for a while. She eventually stopped to walk, and I kept going, and before I knew it I had run an entire mile at the easy pace. One mile turned into two, which turned into three, and by the end of the day I had completed the full loop at the park without stopping. I had found my sustainable pace and had broken through the wall.
Running was relatively easy for me after that, it was just a matter of keeping an easy pace and increasing my distance. My wife Briana and I started running with some work friends during the summer. We ran a work-sponsored 5K, and my distance endurance began to stretch out. By the end of summer my longest run was 9 miles at a modest 11:19/mile pace, and I realized that a half-marathon was within my reach. The Shamrock half-marathon in Virginia Beach seemed like a good place to start; my family and friends were very supportive and thought it was a great idea. However, when I went online to sign up for the race the full marathon was only $20 more expensive. This was in October, which meant 5 months to train in colder weather (which I prefer). After staring at the screen for several minutes I selected the Full Marathon race and paid the extra money, thinking that I could always switch over to the shorter race if my training faltered.
Five months later I finished the Shamrock Marathon in 4:58:21. The final 6 miles were brutal, but I was happy. Immediately after the race I told my wife "I'm never doing that shit again," but the next day at work I was already looking up other marathons in Virginia.
It was extremely satisfying to set a goal for something "impossible", and then to accomplish it. So what comes after a marathon? I plan on running more of them, but simply going for a better time is a boring thing to train for. This is when the idea of running a triathlon crept into my head. I used to swim when I was younger, so when our neighborhood pool opened last month I started swimming laps. After swimming 1600m straight last Sunday, and realizing that's slightly more than olympic triathlon distance, I had to see if my body could handle the other two events in the same day. I took an hour break and wolfed down a slurpee and some hotdogs, biked 25 miles, rested for another hour and then trudged through the 6.22 mile run. None of it was very fast, and the gaps in between certainly made it easier, but it was a proof of concept that my body could handle the cumulative distance.
The next day I bought a road bike and gear. Ironman 2013, here I come.
Then one day my wife came running with me. Her pace was significantly slower than mine, so I slowed down to stay with her for a while. She eventually stopped to walk, and I kept going, and before I knew it I had run an entire mile at the easy pace. One mile turned into two, which turned into three, and by the end of the day I had completed the full loop at the park without stopping. I had found my sustainable pace and had broken through the wall.
Running was relatively easy for me after that, it was just a matter of keeping an easy pace and increasing my distance. My wife Briana and I started running with some work friends during the summer. We ran a work-sponsored 5K, and my distance endurance began to stretch out. By the end of summer my longest run was 9 miles at a modest 11:19/mile pace, and I realized that a half-marathon was within my reach. The Shamrock half-marathon in Virginia Beach seemed like a good place to start; my family and friends were very supportive and thought it was a great idea. However, when I went online to sign up for the race the full marathon was only $20 more expensive. This was in October, which meant 5 months to train in colder weather (which I prefer). After staring at the screen for several minutes I selected the Full Marathon race and paid the extra money, thinking that I could always switch over to the shorter race if my training faltered.
Five months later I finished the Shamrock Marathon in 4:58:21. The final 6 miles were brutal, but I was happy. Immediately after the race I told my wife "I'm never doing that shit again," but the next day at work I was already looking up other marathons in Virginia.
It was extremely satisfying to set a goal for something "impossible", and then to accomplish it. So what comes after a marathon? I plan on running more of them, but simply going for a better time is a boring thing to train for. This is when the idea of running a triathlon crept into my head. I used to swim when I was younger, so when our neighborhood pool opened last month I started swimming laps. After swimming 1600m straight last Sunday, and realizing that's slightly more than olympic triathlon distance, I had to see if my body could handle the other two events in the same day. I took an hour break and wolfed down a slurpee and some hotdogs, biked 25 miles, rested for another hour and then trudged through the 6.22 mile run. None of it was very fast, and the gaps in between certainly made it easier, but it was a proof of concept that my body could handle the cumulative distance.
The next day I bought a road bike and gear. Ironman 2013, here I come.
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