It felt good, I didn’t look at my watch once and I wanted to do it in under 20 mins. I pushed a little harder than the night before but still maintained a comfortable level. Maybe my cardio is doing better than I thought.

Didn’t look at my watch at all, just ran what felt right. Very enjoyable run.

I’m currently sitting at a 10:00/mile. This in itself is okay considering I ran the Calgary Marathon at an average pace of 10:02/mile. Here we are 5 weeks later and as much as my cardio has dropped, it hasn’t dropped all that much.

However, if I’m going to be able to run Honolulu in under 4:00:00 than I definitely have my work cut out for me. I’m got a little more than 5 months to cut back a whole 1:00/mile. That is ambitious. According to my running book I should be able to drop 0:11/mile every 4-6 weeks. Quick calculation and that means in 22-33 weeks I’ll be ready. I have 22 weeks.

Yikes.

I haven’t been able to run because when I had successfully rested from the race my knee began to hurt and only stopped hurting on Monday. Man have I wanted to run. My knee did start to bother me near the end of the run though.  I’ll just have to ease back into it.

I’ve lost a lot of ground.

I finished!

I have no clue what time I pulled off but I know it was sub-4:30:00. This is awesome. My legs feel like they should still be moving but I walk to a guy holding a lot of metals. Pause briefly and dip my head as he puts one around my neck. “Thank you”. I move on to a table full of cups with some kind of recovery drink. They are smaller than the ones we’ve been given throughout the race but anything will do at this point.

My face is covered in salt. Everything hurts. I continue on slowly and can hear people saying my name. It doesn’t matter. I turn onto the sidewalk as my parents come over. My mom has a big smile and wants to hug or something but I can’t stop moving. I tell them so.

As I start to walk down toward the port-o-poties I hear my name again. It’s Jon and he has my hoodie. I hadn’t realized that I was cold until I saw it. Man was I cold. After puting on the hoodie he sticks out a small jug of chocolate milk. It looks as good as salvation at this point to me. I open it as quickly as possible and begin to sip. Gotta keep walking. I can’t stop moving. Continuing down a wheelchair ramp because stairs seem rather daunting at this point, I find my way to the booths and notice that there is a Team Diabetes one. Not sure if I’m supposed to check in with them or not but I finally collapse near their tent anyways.

My feet are killing me. I get my shoes off and am able to relax. My clothes are soaking up all the water from the grass and I continue to get colder. I don’t care. After a while of just laying there I realize how much I need to change my clothes and make my way to the port-o-poties. Jon brought me a change of clothes. It hurts to walk. It hurts to move. Everything hurts.

After changing, my parents let us head back to Jon’s for rest. We stop on the way and pick up some fruit. I eat a banana on the way home. Once there I eat two apples, another banana and several ribs. I love meat at this point. Upon checking the Calgary Marathon website I find myself on it. My chip time was 4:22:53, still can’t believe I pulled that off. Not too long after I head to supper with my parents. I get the largest, juiciest, most bacon ridden burger that I can find. It is so good.

I continue to eat everything I can find for the next 24 hours.

Then I head back home for work the next day.

What a weekend.

Finally, after 8 months of training it was here. The whole line began to move. Just as if the doors to a concert hall had opened up. We began to walk toward the starting line. The clock began to count but it wouldn’t really matter until we walked through the starting chute. Chips on our shoes would record our individual start times. As we got closer and closer to the chute we began to jog. All I could think was, “Go out slow! Go out slow!”. Countless times I’ve read articles, blogs and forums that tell first time marathoners that the number one mistake that we will make is going out too fast. By the time we hit the half way mark we will either be bagged or full of energy and at that moment we will know how we started out.

500 m

I see my parents standing on the side of the road. We go across the first bridge. Everyone is still packed together so much that it’s difficult to not bump into people. Eyes on the prize, Mr. 4:00:00 Pace Bunny. This feels awesome. I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.

1.5 km

The pace bunny yells, “Walking!” and pulls off to the side and begins to walk. Several people join him. What just happened? I kept running, guess I won’t be sticking with him after all.

3 km

First water station. “Skip the first few water stations. They will be so busy that they will just slow you down.”, I recall reading.

3.5 km

“Hey Team D”, I unexpectedly heard.

“Hey”, I replied to the woman that was now running beside me. She was also wearing a Team Diabetes t-shirt.

“What you running?”

“The full. You?”

“Same.” We continued in silence for a couple of steps.

I decided to ask, “What time are you hoping for?”

“Anywhere from 4:00:00 to 4:30:00.”

“Yea, me too.” This was good to hear.

We ran in silence briefly before she took off ahead of me. I kept my pace and reassured myself, “Keep it slow.”

7.5 km

I finally decide to take off a layer and end up doing so as I pass the Team D Lady. She catches up and says, “I’m surprised you didn’t do that earlier. You got someone to hand that off too?”

“A friend of mine should be waiting around the 9 mile mark”, I knew the 9 km flag wasn’t too far away but forgot that 9 miles wasn’t 9 km’s, 9 miles is more like 14 km’s. I take the shirt and tie it in a knot around my arm, something I learned while doing my long runs.

10.5 km

Running towards us on the other side of the road are the Elite Half-Marathoners. It’s quite the site to see them run in real life. Many of us begin to cheer them on. At this point I’m still running with the Team D Lady, she seemed to decide to stick with me for a little while anyway. Where’s Jon?

12.5 km

There’s Jon. Standing by a barricade on the other side of the road he fumbles with my camera as I fumble with my shirt. The whole time the Half-Marathoners are running in the other direction between us. I see an opening and throw my shirt at him, keeping one arm by my face in anticipation as if I was shooting a basketball after the buzzer had gone.

13.25 km

Until now it was still surprisingly crowded. This is when all of the Half-Marathoners turn around and head back to the start. Man did it ever thin out. Around this time the residential buildings stop surrounding us and you can feel the cold wind pick up. I start to think, “Why didn’t I do the half? I would be going back already.”

14.5 km

We head up the big hill. The one that was concerning me for almost a week. I remember what Sarah said, “Once you start running up a hill don’t stop and don’t slow down.”

16 km

The hill finally plateaued. Surprisingly the hill that I had been training on, although it wasn’t quite as much of an elevation change, was a lot tougher. My hill was steeper. Much steeper. Maybe I’ll make it through this after all.

21 km

This is the stupidest part of the race. About a quarter mile sooner we turn up this side street and once we hit 21 km’s we turn around in the middle of this small residential street and head back down.

21.1 km

Half way. There is a man standing beside a mat that has a sensor to read our time chip on our shoe. The man is rambling off times as we run across it. “2:09:38″ Wait, what? Really? I’m on my pace. How do I feel? I feel great. Maybe I’ll finish this thing after all.

22 km

There’s my parents again. Standing on the corner with smiling faces. My dad sticks out his hand and I slap it as I run by.

22.5 km

I could be done by now if I had chosen the half.

23 km – 31 km

The next 8 k were tough and the whole time TDL (Team D Lady) was drilling me with questions. I love hated her at this point. She asked me about my marital status, my financial status and my educational status. Within these 8 k were several small hills. We were constantly going up and down, running on slants to the left and then slants to the right. My feet were beginning to hurt and I developed a cramp. Despite the full residential areas that we move through there wasn’t much to see and not a lot of people around.

31 km

There are my parents again. I take off my heart rate monitor and running watch and hand it over to my dad. It decided to reset itself around 24 km’s. Now back down the hill.

35 km

Jon’s back.

37 km

I get so excited that I yell to all who are around me, “Only 5 k to go, just forget about the last 37.” People laugh and I attempt to surge. A quarter kilometer down the road I loose all momentum I had gained from the surge and die back down. I’m a little sluggish. There’s no way I can continue at the pace that I kept for the first 37 km but there is no way that I’m going to stop. TDL slowly starts to loose me. I use her back as a target.

38.5 km

I can’t see her anymore. Fighting back the tears I push forward. I’m going to finish, I can’t believe I’m going to finish.

39 km

The final water station. Man do I need this. I take a water, I take a gatorade and then I see it… there is a guy holding out soaking wet sponges. I almost cry again, my emotions are a mess. With the gatorade cup in my left hand and the lip of the water cup in my teeth, I grab the sponge and exhale a “Thank You” through the water cup. Nothing could feel better than this sponge across my face right now.

40 km

People are breaking down all over the place. I pass some that are now walking, others that stop at intervals to stretch out the pain and few that cannot go any further. Push through the pain.

41 km

Finally I get to turn off of the 8 km long stretch of one street. I’ve studied the map, I know just how close I am. 1.2 km’s away. My mind is jello.

41.25 km

A volunteer shouts, “Only 500 meters to go”.

41.35 km

A volunteer shouts, “Only 500 meters to go”.

41.5 km

A volunteer shouts, “Only 500 meters to go”.

41.75 km

A volunteer shouts, “Only a few hundred meters to go”. Some one needs to give these guys a tape measure.

41.9 km

Despite all of the lies from the last few volunteers I feel great and know that the finish is around these next two corners. I’m still shocked I’ve come this far.

42 km

Only one corner to go. Everything hurts. I’m exhausted. I was going slowly but determined to keep running.

42.1 km

Just turned the final corner. I can see the finish chute.

So here it is.

Finally, three and a half weeks later I’ve finally decided to put thought to paper.

On June 14th 2009 I stepped outside for the first time with the intention of running. I started out with a walk to run program and my first run was actually run for 1:00 followed by a 0:30 walk repeated 15 times. One month later I was able to run 5k straight without any walk breaks. I kept running 5k three times a week for another month before I decided to up the ante. It was about this time that I began thinking about running a marathon. I’ve read many times that you should be running for at least a year before you attempt your first marathon. With this in mind I began to search for race possibilities. Once I found the Calgary Marathon and saw that it was on May 30th, two weeks before my one year anniversary. I knew this was the one.

I lived in Calgary for 5 years and still have plenty of friends who live there or in the area. It just seemed to make sense. So I had my target Marathon and worked backwards to determine when my training should officially begin. I got my training schedule from Nike+ and just kept running until it started. Training went well. I was on target. Until about 3 months before the race. I cranked my knee on a rim at work and needed to take a week off to recover. Just as my knee was feeling good enough to run I cranked it again on another rim, by doing the exact same thing. Two weeks gone at this point but I had recovered and felt great. I went out for my long run and had shaved off 3 mins from my previous time at that distance. This made me completely confident that I hadn’t lost any momentum. My next run after that long run was when it showed up. Shin splints. Which require at least two weeks to recover. So here I am five consecutive weeks of hardly any running and only five more weeks to go until the marathon. I knew I couldn’t go out too fast or run too far or the shin splints would return so I had to take it slow.

If things had gone well and there were no injuries than mathematically I should’ve been able to pull of about a 3:42:00 marathon. My goal was anything under 4 hours. Prior to my injuries I was running 9:15 minute miles and about to jump up to 9:00 minute miles. To be able to finish the last five weeks without injuring myself all over again I decided to drop back down to 10:00 minute miles. I hated every run I did because it felt so slow. I even shortened all of my runs. The last five weeks were revised 3 separate times to reduce the potential of injury. By the time I got to the marathon the longest run that I had done was 16 miles. A marathon is 26 miles and 385 yards. I knew I was in over my head.

The week leading up to the marathon I was only getting more nervous and excited as the days progressed.

Friday. I drive down to Calgary and don’t have a clue what to expect. At the end of the day on Friday I had decided completing the race without walking would be satisfactory, completing it in less than 5 hours would make me happy and if I pulled off a sub-4:30:00 marathon then I would be pumped.

Saturday. I ran around and did all of the final preparations that needed to be done. Still in a bit of shock that after all this time the marathon is less than 24 hours away. I made sure to buy a few gels that I new I liked and checked the weather constantly to try and determine what to wear.

Sunday. Woke up at 4:30 am. Ate toast. Showered. Dressed. Still in disbelief. Went to get my gels out of my vehicle and realized that I had locked my keys inside. It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t driving myself there and at this point worrying about it would only make things worse mentally. In my head I’m freaking out the whole way to the starting line. The closer we got, the more busier the sidewalks got with other racers. I still don’t know what to think.

6:40 am. I have placed myself in between the 4:00:00 and the 4:30:00 pace bunnies. Standing in anticipation. I can’t wait to start. I can’t wait to find out what I’ve got in me. I can’t wait to experience all that I’ve read and prepared for.

7:00 am. The race begins.

What have I gotten myself into?

This one was a bit of a rush job. I left my place so fast that I forgot a couple of things and had to go back in to get them. When I got to the gym I realized that I forgot my mp3 player. There were a few times where I was bored and wished I had had it but over all it wasn’t that bad. I’ve heard that in order to mimic an outdoor run as best as possible, when running on a treadmill, you should run with a 2.0 incline. This is my attempt at gradually getting used to that incline.

This run was awesome. It’s the farthest I’ve ran. Ever. For those metric people out there I covered 25.6 km. This run was outside so the pace was slower than I’ve been doing on the treadmill which is entirely due to the fact that I had to travel over several large hills. On long runs I usually run out of energy and get so hungry that I can’t focus but this time I brought a little bit of food with me to eat while I ran. Best idea I’ve had in a long time.

Ran 6 miles in 50:06 with an average pace of 8:21/mile. (Treadmill)

I was supposed to run 8 miles straight but the problem is that the treadmills that I run on force you to cool down once you hit 60 minutes. I decided that I’d do a 2 mile “warm-up” and then stop the treadmill and start it up again as fast as possible, so I probably have 20 seconds max in between these runs.

The first 2 miles felt good but I wanted to keep it a true warm-up and not go any faster than the 9:30/mile that I am supposed to run. The 6 miles were awesome. A 9:30/mile pace is equivalent to about 6.3 mph, this is where I started. after a couple miles of progressively increasing the speed I finally stopped and ran about 3 miles at 7 mph. This wasn’t enough for me though so I again slowly increased the speed until I hit 8 mph with about 1.5 miles to go. I ran the final 1.5 miles at 8 mph which is equivalent to a 7:30/mile pace. I felt the extra effort that was needed to keep this pace going but it still wasn’t all that uncomfortable. It was enjoyable.