Half Marathon - I did it!

I ran the Ottawa half marathon this morning! What a fantastic experience, I look forward to learning more from it as I ponder the ups and downs of the race, as well as the intensity of training from Feb 7th to May 27, running 5 days a week. Sarah and I were up at 6:50am, showered, had an egg for breakfast and were out the door around 7:40. We parked the car and got to city hall a little after eight. I originally planned on wearing a vest as it was a bit chillier than last week (it was 13 degrees, around 55 I think), but I ended up taking it off before the starting line. I also turned the hat around as it doesn't sit fully on my head and is therefore uncomfortable, but I like having something to catch the sweat or else my ears get so slippery my ipod's headphones don't stay in.

This is a photo Sarah took of the starting line after everyone had left. What a great feeling it was to start running up Elgin towards the sign, turning left in front of Parliament. My goal was to run the 21.1 km, or 13.3 miles in less than 2 hours 30 minutes, so I lined up towards the back of the group with a whole bunch of people expecting to run similar times. It helped to be grouped like this, as well to have experienced runners wearing bunny ears who would plan to run at a pace of 1:45, 2, 2:15, 2:30, 2:45 and 3 hours for example. If you wanted a specific time, all you had to do was stick with that group. I decided to start with the 2:30 group and see how I felt. In the madness of the crowd I ended up starting with the 2:45 group, which worked out well, because I was able to run comfortably, without tons of people passing me. I even gained a bit of confidence by passing some, and eventually even passed the 2:30 group. I was afraid that meant I was running too fast and would eventually lose energy, but my 3k, 4k and 5k times were all slower than I was training, so I was still running at a conservative pace.

I wasn't running super fast, but as I hit 7km at 45 min, I figured I was on pace to finish at around 2h 15 min and felt my confidence increase. As we neared 9km and were crossing the bridge back into Ottawa (from km#2 until #10 we ran on the Quebec side of the river, coming within minutes of my apt!) I realized we had done almost all the hills (none were that bad) and that I felt pretty good. We passed near city hall again and just after a water break and just before we started running along the canal I saw my beautiful wife in her bright yellow rain coat (did I mention it started raining around 5km?) It was another great boost to have a drink and see her cheer me on! In fact, that was one of my favorite parts of the experience, having thousands of people lining the road cheering and pushing us on, even though we were all strangers. Since our first names were written on our bibs, many people even cheered my by name, "keep going David, you're doing great!" It was great. Some girls had a sign which read "marathoners are hot," while another group held up a quote "pain is temporary, quitting is forever." I saw a 5 year old with a sign "you're my hero daddy," and Sarah saw a woman running with a tshirt dedicating the run to her recently deceased husband. On top of great emotion from the crowd I had some fun running and rain music on my ipod to keep me going. From "Born to Run" by Springsteen to "New York, New York" by Sinatra ("if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere) and some Grateful Dead ("Roll away the dew!" & "I sure don't know what I'm going for, but I'm going to for it for sure." & "Just a little bit harder, just a little bit more, just a little bit further than you've gone before" & "long distance runner, what you standing there for...")
We hit the canal after 10.5 km, so I knew we'd have 5 down and 5 back, with the turnaround near the 16km mark. I felt great running along the canal, so good that I still didn't feel like taking a break. As each distance passed I remembered when that distance was the longest run of my training and how hard it had been and was impressed by how strong I felt. I remembered dying in the heat of my 12k run in Toulouse, running 14k on this very course in freezing weather, and having to take many walking breaks during my 16k runs on the indoor track in the dome (see my earlier post). Amazingly, I didn't stop to walk and stretch until the 16k mark! (other than a few seconds at each water station every 3km). Of course the last little bit was the hardest, but when I drank water around 17k and asked myself what I had left physically and emotionally, I realized I only had 4k left to run, and I could do 4 no prob, so I threw my cup down and kept on. At the 18k mark I remembered running that same distance in Nice and again in Paris and how wonderful those runs felt emotionally, especially finishing in Paris by running up the Champs-Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe. In Nice I ran 18k in 2:03; in Paris I ran it in 2:07. Today it took exactly 2hours, I was feeling good, but I noticed I was slowing down and when a fave Phish song came on my ipod I was surprised I couldn't keep up with the beat. Even still, my time at 20k was 4 minutes faster than the 20k I ran 2 weeks ago. By far, the hardest part was the last 1.1km. By then the whole way was lined with people cheering us on, shouting and clapping and making us feel really special. I saw a sign saying I had 800 meters left, and while I knew I could make it without taking another break, my body was starting to ask why I wanted to! It felt like forever before seeing the 600m sign, then 400m and just as I was anxious to see another sign, I saw the finish line! What a great sight, and so I picked up the pace a little. As I neared I could see the people around me on the giant videoscreen and hear the announcer reading off the names of the people finishing. Right before crossing I heard him say "congratulations so and so, & so and so, and David Jones from Gatineau, you have finished the half marathon in 2 hours 22 minutes! Ahhhh, it felt good. There were so many people I couldn't find Sarah until we went back to our designated meeting place, but in the meantime I got my foil jacket, some orange slices and my medal. It was so nice to see Sarah again and tell her all about my experience.
We got home, showered, ate and went to church in the single's ward, since they meet at 2pm. When we got home, we ate some more (I was hungry!) and enjoyed a cake Sarah made to celebrate the occasion. What an amazing wife I have eh? I've lost 13 pounds since starting to train, so I felt alright eating a big bowl of ice cream with my dinner. Sarah and I are going to start training together soon to run a 10km by the end of the summer, so I can worry about what I eat then.