The following is the third 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.

I was out the door running.  All of the anticipation had led up to this.

On the advice of council (namely, my wife), I had plotted my course carefully to include an escape route by which I could cut the 3mi. run in half if the situation became dire.

Rule number one: always leave yourself an out.  Better to live and fight another day than go down in a blaze of cardiac arrest. Why is it that a woman’s reason so often outmatches a man’s bullheaded self confidence?

The wind gusted headlong in my face as I turned the corner onto the sidewalk across the street from my house. It was a brutal omen of things to come.  I’d checked the thermostat in my car on the way home from work.  It was 28 degrees then.  It had only gotten darker and colder since.   I wondered while driving what it was going to feel like trying to run in this.  The wind answered that question with a quick, definitive, wisp.  It was taunting me to turn around.

It was doubting me.  Testing my resolve.  The wind knew that I was mere steps away from my warm, welcoming front door, and my nose and ears already stiffened and tingled like they do when you’ve been skiing all day.  It was questioning whether I really had it in me, like when my wife smirked before I went out the door, or the way my brother had started the email with “I probably know the answer to this…”

I picked up the pace.  I turned the corner and headed down the next street.  My breathing picked up.  My chest tightened.

Rule number two: don’t pick up the pace because you think you are stronger than the difficult conditions.   You aren’t.  This rule is particularly true when you have not run in about a year, and the conditions happen to be particularly difficult at the moment.  I tend to learn things the hard way.

The wind eventually calmed to disastrously frigid breeze.  I backed off to the pace that I guess I had always run at.  I could feel my heart rate through my sternum, and breathing had evolved into desperate wheezing gasps.

Rule number three: whatever pace you have run at before you tried to run three miles, is probably much faster than you ought to try running if you actually intend to make it three miles. Check.

I had studied the map before leaving to know exactly where each mile marker was.  What I’d planned as a rewarding set of milestones to mark my accomplishments began to seem like depressing reminders of the distance left between where I was and just how far away they were.  I hadn’t even made it a mile yet.

This is where the coughing starts, the nose runs, and everything else goes predominantly wrong.   You reach a certain point of exhaustion when you’re as out of shape as I was, where every second’s thoughts become tangled in chest-heaving gulps for air and the occasional unintended snot rocket.  I’d heard of the runner’s high that people who consistently conquer the types of distances that I was now training for talk about.  I’m pretty sure at that moment I stumbled upon the antithesis of that concept, and plunged face first into the runner’s low.

I started looking for my out, as stated in rule number one.  It was time to let foolish pride give way to reason, and accept the fact that your wife was right—you should have started with a mile.

Due to the fatigue-induced delirium I’d begun to experience (or perhaps just the onset of hypothermia as the wind pierced my sweat-soaked layers), I had already made one wrong turn, but thanks to the fact that I hadn’t run very far at all at this point, I knew I was headed in the right direction.  I had to be about 3/4mi. into it at this point, but somewhere amid the freezing wind, pitch black skies, and runner’s low, the name of my out road had totally slipped my mind.  The bitter disbelief that there is no way I hadn’t made it to the out road yet took over.

Rule number four: while in the runner’s low, disregard what you thought you knew before leaving.  You won’t remember.

I was getting desperate.  The wheezing gasps were beginning to sound more like pathetic cries for help.  I made an impulsive left turn and got lucky.  Not the out road I’d planned on, actually the street before it.  I hadn’t even made it to my shortcut, but the time for pride was long past.

Just over a mile into it, I conceded.  The chest convulsions now totally out of control, I erred on the side of self-preservation, and slowed to a walk.  When my breathing returned to a reasonably safe rhythm I picked up to a jog again, and went back and forth running and walking until finally I reached the warm, climate-controlled safety of home.

I was a hot mess when I stumbled in the door—soaked in sweat, freezing, sucking wind, and coughing uncontrollably.  Like I was coughing up a year of unhealthy decisions.

Round one goes to the elements.  I didn’t make it three miles.  I didn’t even make to the out road.  But I ran, and finished.

Rule number five: when you finish, tell yourself it won’t be so bad next time.  Eventually, it won’t even be a lie.

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.

Related posts:

1. A half-what?!: Prep time
2. A half-what?!
3. Road Rage