A half-what?!: I have a method
The following is the fourth in a series of posts that chronicle Kyle’s training for the Raleigh Rocks Half Marathon in Raleigh, NC. Will he stick with it? Will he fail miserably for the amusement of all who read? Will he jump on stage and smash a guitar, eight miles into the race and be arrested? Will he leave it all—including his breakfast—out on the beautiful streets of downtown Raleigh and finish? Read on to find out.
With the first run debacle over with, it was time to take a more realistic approach. I had tried the baseless self-confidence route, and let’s just say I wasn’t going to will my way through a half-marathon. The agony endured on the first run equated to an addict’s dose of humility.
It was time for realism. The notion that the triumph of the human spirit would somehow take a completely out of shape 26-year-old and immediately summon the endurance in him to soldier painlessly through three miles faded into fantasy. The youthful excitement over the new mission at hand gave way to the realization that if I really was going to make this happen, it was going to be a long tough road. A road on which my heel had only just landed, and I hadn’t even finished the first step.
So if obtrusive naivety wouldn’t work—if the boyish reasoning that one could simply conquer any distance he dared was an unrealistic approach—then what exactly was the plan? I had a long way to go, and a base of only mushy cellulosic tissue to build upon. I needed some kind of strategy. Some kind of method to get me from here to there.
Next up was the weekend run. The big guy—four miles on Saturday. The training schedule I was now the victim of consisted of four runs a week. Medium distance runs Mondays and Thursdays, shorter distance runs Wednesdays, and long distance runs on Saturdays. It would be my first long distance run overall (as if the three miles I’d utterly failed in attempting that Thursday wasn’t long enough).
There was, admittedly, no way I way that I was going to be able to run four miles that weekend. Whatever false aspirations I might have once harbored about being able to persist running through such distances had been crushed earlier that week. I decided that the reality of the situation was what it was. If I wasn’t in good enough shape to run four miles then I would have to find a way to get into that kind of shape. And if I couldn’t run four miles, I would have to find a way to make it four miles one way or the other.
I resolved to run as far as I could that day. To run until the hyperventilated gasps were too much to handle, but I also resolved not to quit after that. No, this was not the same manifestation of foolish pride that arose earlier that week. Not the bull-headed self-gratifying naïve persistence. When I exhausted and couldn’t run anymore I would walk, but come hell or high water, I would make it four miles that day. There would be no out road. Strike rule number one from the record.
I tried to take note of the lessons I’d learned in my first failed attempt. For one, the ridiculous pace I’d started with that day all but guaranteed that I wouldn’t finish. I thought back to a conversation I had with my dad. His brother was a marathoner and is an avid runner to this day. My dad told me about a conversation he’d had with one of the guys my uncle used to run marathons with.
“Yeah, I run marathons,” he said. “But see, I have a method. I start slow…and then I ease up.”
And just like that, I had a method.
Check back soon for more installments of Kyle’s illustrious half-marathon training. Assuming he does not hyperventilate and die mid-training, this series will monitor Kyle’s torturous journey right up to the Raleigh Rocks Half Marathon on March 27, 2010. Stay tuned.
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