Long Beach Half-Marathon

I signed up with my family to run the Long Beach half-marathon in December. The race was over 10-months away when we planned, so plenty of time to train and prepare for it. I've run several half-marathon's previously but didn't run at all in 2013, so a good excuse to get back at it.

The deadline was too far in the future and I kept delaying getting started, my first training run wasn't until June; adding it to my running spreadsheet the previous run was Sept 2012, a 20 month gap!

For training, I only got out and ran 16 times over the next 4 months. My total training was 54 miles, the longest run being only 5 miles, the average run just over 3 miles. So going into the race, I felt a bit under-prepared and a little nervous but since I committed to doing it I was going to give it a shot, at the worst I could walk.

My training plan, start slow and taper off

The day before the race, my daughter said she wanted to give me a sticker to wear during the race. You can see it in the above selfie, she just got a pack of Frozen stickers, so giving one up was kinda of a big deal. She gave me the sticker of the family, so I'll have my family with me while running. Sometimes 3-year olds can really surprise you.

Later that night, while sitting quietly getting ready for bed, she said with all seriousness, "Daddy, I need to tell you something". I was curious what was so important that she had to tell me she was going to tell me something, "What is it, honey?" She said, "I can do this with my tongue" and preceded to stick it out and wiggle it all around. Too funny!

It was remembering this, and my family was to be at the end waiting to cheer. Remembering advice from Crazy Running Guy to take it slow, and co-workers wishing me well. Confidence that I've finished races before and trusting somehow my body still remembered how, even after such a long break.

All of this got me to the finish in 2 hours 24 min 28 secs, my slowest half-marathon to date, but considering my lack of training I was happy to finish. The donut holes at mile 10 also helped, thanks Long Beach Triathlon Club!

I'm sore today, but feel good I finished and looking forward to getting back into a better training cycle. My next race I'm aiming for a PR!

Here are my times from the seven half-marathons I've completed: