Spontaneously ran a half marathon on Saturday. First one ever, not too shabby @ 1:55 total time.
Can't see the allure of 26.2 =P
Congrats 2B1S! that's an awesome time for a first effort. I'll bet though, one day you will cross to the dark side like I did today :)
May not have achieved my "A" goal of four hours, but fuck it felt good not to throw in the towel and mentally tough it out when the better option was to throw myself in the lake we circled.
The half came and went at 1:58, just one minute from my PB for that distance(!), and at 28k I was at 2:41.
I knew that was the end of the A goal because I could feel the wheels falling off due to not enough training miles and everything cramped in the last 14k. I got cramps and pains in places in my legs where I didn't know I had muscles. At 35km I lost my guts and lost 4 minutes at a toilet stop. Porta Potties are quite small, and the lack of space certainly didn't help when I needed space to...umm.... wipe properly lol.
I came to a complete standstill at 38km and again at 39.5km, where my throbbing calves and then hamstrings felt like they wanted to tear themselves from my legs and run away.
What was really surprising after that was that running was less painful than walking! So I did that, recalculated a new target of 4:30 and was all set to do it until the legs seized up with 80 metres to go! Cue audible gasp from the onlookers hanging around in the grandstand. I started bawling my eyes out* being so close watching the clock next to the finish arch and unable to move. Almost thought I'd have to crawl it. Then they all started cheering for me to get going and one woman shouted at me if I needed to be carried! One foot in front of the other and as the clocked ticked up, that last 80 took 40 seconds. Just made it at 4:29:57, net time being 4:29:42.
Frustrating as hell that I was not tired at the end. It was lack of legs, not lack of lungs that let me down. Need to do a lot more long runs, it's my own fault but there is a known path to fixing it which makes me feel good about it.
Next one is in 15 weeks. I must be crazy.
*After burning 4000 calories, I've discovered one starts to lose control of their brain function and emotional state quite quickly. I now have intimate understanding of why many finishers are a sobbing mess at the end of the big one.