Towards the end of September, while I was out, I came across a sign that said there would be a half marathon soon and that day the road would be closed. When I saw the sign, the race was just under three days away.

I was drawn to this event and instantly started thinking about what it would be like to participate. For about a day after this, I was thinking about whether or not I should take the next step and soon decided to do it.

Internal conflict

Part of me believed I had what it took to complete 13.1 miles, while a smaller part of me wasn’t sure. Since I walk regularly, exercise, run about 6 miles on average, and had run ten miles at the beginning of the year without feeling exhausted by the end, I knew I could do it.

The other part of me that wasn’t so sure was worried that I would end up in a lot of pain and would have to stop. So even though this part of me just wanted to complete it, the other part of me wasn’t just participating to do the numbers, it was participating to do it well.

The race

That day I felt confident and after learning that the first part I had to run with my head, the second part with my personality and the third with my heart, I was ready to control my pace. I paced myself for much of the race, and although I felt pretty exhausted after reaching the halfway point, I kept going.

In addition to being helped by the energy chews and drink I had, the support of the viewers also played a big part. Every time I received this support, I was filled with a little more energy.

the end part

After I had run about 9 miles I started to pick up my speed but towards the end a fairly steep hill took me out. I wasn’t about to stop but ran up the hill very slowly and once I got to the top I was knackered to say the least.

When I looked ahead, the nearest runner was a bit farther away, so I didn’t see the point of speeding up. Pretty soon I was at the finish line and although I was exhausted at the end I didn’t feel like I was about to die or anything so I was glad I was able to finish the race.

the next stage

Still, once I started to calm down, I ended up feeling angry that I hadn’t done better. I felt I could have tried harder and had a much better time – my time was 1:52.

I messaged a friend and he told me this was just the beginning and he would do much better next time. I ended up spending the next few days analyzing my run and where I could have done better and what I needed to do differently next time.

race number two

At the end of my first race, someone told me about a castle race, but it was only a week later and I ended up finding out that they were sold out. This was a good thing as while I was able to run, my body was nowhere near ready to run another half marathon so soon.

After a week had passed I ended up finding a race that wasn’t too far away and this was taking place in two weeks. This time I knew I had what it took to execute everything, so I was ready to push myself.

rare to go

At the starting point, I was full of energy and felt excited and confident. This time, I increased my speed pretty much from the start because I knew I had to.

I hadn’t done much running since my last race, but after not feeling totally hot last time, I knew I had the energy to go faster and set a better time. Around the 7 mile point I ended up hitting the gas and ended up running through an area I had driven through when I was visiting a castle a while ago, which was totally unexpected because it gave me a boost. .

the wall was close

It was a long time though before the little hills started to appear, this was a ‘rolling’ ride, and that’s when I started to feel it. I hadn’t “hit the wall”, but I was running out of power centrally.

At that time, I ended up imagining my late father, grandfather, and two uncles. I heard that they can support me but they can’t run for me and after this, I was able to harness more energy and increased my speed.

The hills went on and on and soon I felt that my energy had left me and there were about two miles to go. Fortunately, I was able to harness more energy and ran quite a bit first until I was close to the finish line.

another milestone

Once I got to this point I was totally exhausted and while I didn’t want to waste the progress I’d made by running faster for most of the ride, I just didn’t have the energy to keep up my speed. I looked at the clock, it said something like 1:3, so I knew I had done much better.

By the end, I was exhausted and needed some time to calm down, but it didn’t take long until I was back to normal. Towards the end of the day I found that my time was 1:39, so I was very pleased with the 13 minutes it had taken off my previous time.

forward and upward

Interestingly, as the days went by, my body was not as sore as after the previous race even though I had run faster and the course was much more difficult. Now that I have run two half marathons and seen how fast the people in front are, to win a race I would need to have a time of around 1:15, I see that I need to be very good to get to the next level.

After completing my first half marathon, I was filled with confidence and faith and wondered what else I was capable of accomplishing. Have you ever run a half marathon or a full marathon? If so, what effect did it have on you?