This past weekend, I ran in the Wisconsin Marathon in Kenosha, Wisconsin. I participated in the half-marathon, as I'm sure as hell not ready to run a full marathon yet. This was my second race at that distance and although I will never be someone that will ever win one of these races, I have this thing where I want to do better every time I try.* My time from the first half-marathon was 1:55:28 or something like that, so that was the time to beat.
The weather was great: Sunny and about 50 degrees at 0700, when the race started. I had a good pace (8:28/mile) going through the first ten miles and then I pretty much hit a wall. About the same time, the clouds rolled in and a wind kicked up off the lake. I felt like I was running through glue. Although I wasn't having any problems with my cardio, my legs were just shot. Nonetheless, I did manage to creep in a bit faster than my first half-marathon. My official time was 1:53:44 (8:41/mile).
One of the thoughts I had around the Mile 12 mark was "if I feel this crappy at 12 miles, how in the hell am I going to run 26 miles in October?" Granted, I was running faster for this race than I suspect I will run the full marathon, but it's not that much slower.**
I have 144 days to train for the marathon and my "official" training doesn't start for another month, but this weekend's race really reminded me of how far I've yet to go.
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* - At least until my body refuses to allow me to do so based on age...I figure I have 3 or 4 years left max before my times start going down instead of up.
** - I am planning on trying to run it in under four hours (9:09/mile); as I pointed out in an earlier post, I have no idea if this will be possible, but that's what I am going to shoot for.
Labels: half-marathon, lakefront marathon
