Sunday, June 10, 2012

The reason for my half marathon

For the past 8 months I ran, and ran, and ran. I worked out. I tried to eat better. Over the last 8 months, I lost 20 lbs, and gained the ability to run much longer than I ever thought was possible for me.

I was training for a half marathon.

I may have mentioned before that I have exercise-induced asthma. As the name implies, the asthma doesn't kick in until the lungs are being strained through physical exertion. I don't have any other asthma symptoms at any other time. I was diagnosed with it in middle school and it has kept me from doing all kinds of fun sports for fear of triggering an attack. Running and prolonged swimming have been the two things I had convinced myself I'd never be able to do, because they seemed to always cause me problems. I do not have inhalers to control the asthma because the inhalers actually made it worse. I quit taking them and learned to control my environment. I have lived with this fear of my asthma for about 20 years.

Last year, I went to a Relief Society meeting about walking and running. A man, who is apparently famous in this area (and of course I can't remember his name), came and talked with us about walking and running techniques, types of shoes, nutrition, etc. It was a fantastic meeting and I came away feeling like I was looking into a world I never knew was there. I realized I had been running wrong all along, and I began to see how running could be a reality for me. So, I began to walk and add a little running here and there. Before I knew it, I was running a whole mile! I had taken that step onto this new world of exercise.

I have a good friend who trained for a half marathon last year. I babysat for her while she went on her runs and I was always impressed at how dedicated she was. I really enjoy participating in triathlons (on a relay team), but watching her as she trained and became a considerably better runner inspired me.

That running man and my friend helped to create a question in my head I was itching to get answered. I had already been running a little (I was up to 1.5 miles) and I wanted to know how far I could push myself. How much could I handle?

13 miles is so much more than I could ever imagine doing, which is why I wanted to try for it. I honestly couldn't see myself going that far. It was way beyond what I thought I was capable of and if I could complete 13 miles, even with asthma, I could see myself being a completely changed woman. The woman on the other side would know that she is strong enough to accomplish anything, in any part of her life. The woman on the other side would be closer to who she is than at any other time in her life. She would understand things about herself that she never had before. That is why I wanted to run a half marathon.

I wanted to find that part of myself I felt had gotten lost.

So, in a crazy burst of courage, I signed up for my own half marathon. Only later did people tell me that this particular race had a really hard course, and I was brave for doing this as my first.

I ran and ran. I trained and ate better. I lost a little weight here and there. When I hit 3 miles of continuous running, I felt like a huge barrier had been broken. I was no longer the timid girl who hid behind the asthma excuse. I began to believe that 13 miles was possible.

Sometimes, training was really hard. I fought with not wanting to go workout, or go running. My motivation would surge, and then wane. It was like going over rolling hills, and going up the next hill always made me want to quit. I wanted to be comfortable, and just go back to my comfortable life. But I pushed on and upward, and always made it through.

After months of training, the day came, and I did NOT feel ready. My longest run was 9.5 miles (I am using the word "run" at this point pretty loosely. I walked some because I still could not ignore the asthma issue) and I could barely crawl home after that one. I didn't feel that I trained hard enough, I could have eaten better, I should have been more consistent, etc.

One reason I didn't feel ready was the course itself. I finally drove the course a few days before the race, and realized that there is a solid 1 mile uphill, followed by another 2 miles of a little flat road interchanged with more hills. Kind of like rolling hills, except the downhill is replaced by a flat road. So, that equals 3 miles of going basically uphill. I was pretty nervous and I even contemplated switching over to the 10k race instead.

I showed up on race day, ready or not, to do my 13.1 miles and that, in itself, was an accomplishment.




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