April 29, 2018 OKC Half Marathon

For the 4 people who read this blog, you know that, last year, I ran the half marathon portion of the OKC Memorial Marathon. I wanted to crack the two hour barrier but came up 2 minutes short. Very discouraging. To make up for it, I started training in the winter of 2018 to run the thing again and see if I couldn't get those two minutes back. I always do some regular running weekly to stay in shape and not get too fat but this requires more. Read my previous posts on how I REALLY do not like running.

So I put in 10 weeks of hard training covering about 260 miles. You do the math. That's about 26 miles a week. Just a tremendous increase from my normal mileage which is 12 miles a week. 

The distance of a half marathon is 13.1 miles (21 kilometers for you metric types) and things had gone okay with my training. My longest training run was 11 miles which I covered in good time. I was set.

The race was on a Sunday and I went out that Tuesday before for a short 4 mile run. I wasn't running very hard at all when I felt my left calf pop. If you've never had this happen, just imagine someone shooting you in the back of the leg. it is very painful. Of course this happens at exactly the furthest point from my house so I have to limp back 2 miles to get home. I know I'm in big trouble. This happened to me back in 2017 also. However, it happened in the 7th week of training so I had time to try to recover and rehab the leg. Click here and see that I had a Grade 2 tear. These things normally take 10 days to 3 weeks to heal if you start doing P.R.I.C.E which is: protection, rest, ice, compression, elevation. 

So now I'm facing a dilemma. I only have 5 days until the race. I could 1) just skip the race and let the leg heal 2) do no more running before the race which would mean I'm not ready cardio-wise so no hope of breaking the two hour barrier plus the leg won't be completely healed 3) keep training and be fit cardio-wise but risk pushing the injury to Grade 3 and still deal with a lot of pain.

I go for option 2. I just don't run on the thing. I do PRICE as much as I can in the few days I have before the race. I tried to jog (not run) on Saturday evening to test the leg but I feel it might go bad and I stop after 2 minutes. On Sunday morning I'm standing at the starting line with 20,000 other people. (See if you can find me here or here. I'm basically the only black guy out there so it shouldn't be that hard.) but I know I'm in trouble. The leg isn't throbbing but it's not healed. To my surprise, I get to almost 7 miles before the pain comes. But when it comes, boy does it come. I still manage to clown for the guys taking pictures. See here and here and here. I got around in 2 hours 15 minutes. That's a full minute per mile slower than the year before. Just wasn't my day.:-(

So some questions and answers. Why didn't I just shut it down and wait for next year? I guess I could have. It's not like I was competing against anyone. I thought about not going. I've got this strange thing in my brain about completing stuff that I say I'm going to do. Even when they don't matter, I still have to try. I just couldn't see myself not trying. Failing seems okay. Not trying seems bad. I know me and know that's just a strange quirk I have and it's not going to change. This habit can drive others nuts when I get focused like that. 

Will I try again in 2019? Probably not. I think I should settle into making 10K (6.2 miles) my longest race. My legs don't seem to like hitting the double digits on miles. But who knows? When January rolls around, I might get the urge to try again. I do think I can get under 2 hours if everything fell together properly.