Ethan's Half Marathon

A year ago this time I hated running; I did it every now and then for exercise but it was always hard and I never liked it. Then last summer, I got an MP3 player and April started running with me so that made it a little more enjoyable. After about six weeks of consistent running I got to the point where it finally became easier (that felt great). I told a friend I had been running and he mentioned to me that a group of people from our Stake were doing a marathon/half-marathon in January. It sounded like a good goal and the timing was good for me, so I signed up for the Diamond Valley Lake Marathon sponsored by Habitat for Humanity.

Around October I started on Hal Higdon's Novice Half Marathon Training Program. My training was going great, and I even came in 1st place in my age group 25-29 in the Julian 5K in November (I was the only runner in my age group!). But then in December, I started having serious problems with Runner's Knee. As a result, I stopped training during the week so I could focus on my long runs on the weekends. I needed all the time during the week to recover from my long runs. I got up to 10 miles a few times but my knee was so sore I could barely walk 24-48 hours after those runs. About a week before the race I was doubtful if I would even run. I wasn't concerned about the pain as much as I was any permanent damage I might cause to my knee. A few days before the race, my race counselor and mentor, Leah Fisher, told me that her orthopedic doctor said it was unlikely that running the race would result in any permanent damage. So I was in. I loaded up on pasta and gatorade the day before. We stayed at Diana's grandparent's house in Hemet the night before so I could be close to the race location the next morning.

It was 39 degrees the morning of the race. By 8:30 I think it had warmed up a bit. I did a warm up and stretched a bit and already my knee was back at it and hurt pretty bad. I wore a knee brace I had bought the week before to help support my kneecap. The horn went of signaling the start at 8:30, and we were off. My goal was 2 hours, 15 minutes, which is a little over 10 minutes a mile (deep inside though, I was shooting for 2 hours, or just over 9 minutes a mile).

The race started uphill and I had started out toward the back of the pack, so it was a slow start. My first mile was 9:02 and was harder than expected. My knee was already at it's peak of pain. My second mile was 9:30, and my third mile was about 10 minutes, so I was already slowing down to the slowest pace I could afford. I never really found my breathing, and I was breathing hard and my heart rate was probably above the optimal range the whole time.

Most of the race was on a wide dirt road with lots of rocks; I preferred the segment of the run that was a paved stretch along the dam. I think I really picked up some time here, because after downing a PowerBar Gel and hitting the 6-mile mark, I was at 56 minutes, a pace of around 9:30 per mile. Click here to see a picture of the course. At the 6.5 mile mark we turned around and began the run back. I think at this point my spirits were highest. I began to see all the people I was ahead of as we were running opposite directions. I also knew that the uphill on the way to the halfway point was downhill on the way back, so I had a lot of downhill to look forward to.

At some point during mile 8.5, for a split second I felt a sharp pain on the inside of my right knee, worse than the regular pain in my knee I had felt the whole race. Fortunately that was the only time I felt that pain. Mile 9 was probably where I first started to feel really tired, so at mile 10 I had my second PowerGel, carmel flavor. I was feeling pretty hot, dry, and dehydrated at that point, so the carmel flavor wasn't too refreshing, but I didn't care as long as it gave me a boost of energy. I told myself that I would really kick into gear at mile 12 and 13, but when finished mile 11 I was too beat to push myself harder. I really wanted to push it the last mile, but I had nothing left. The last mile was the first time I really felt fatigued, and felt a temptation to walk. At that point I didn't care about my time; I just wanted to finish- however, I still had it in me to keep running. There was some uphill the last mile which made it tough, but as I approached the final 100 yards to the finish line, I started sprinting. I figured, why not? If I collapsed at least I would be done.

So I came through triumphant, with a time of 2:03:47, beating my 2:15:00 goal by over 11 minutes, though just short of my deeper 2:00:00 goal. My pace was 9:27 per mile, which I was happy with, and wouldn't you know it, it was good enough to be 2nd place in my age group (somehow 25-29 never really has good representation). Overall I was 64th out of 152 runners. It was a good experience and I was glad I was able to do it, even though I'm in pain right now! I'm looking forward to my next half, but it won't be sooner than 6 months from now.

You can see some other pictures of me running the race if you go to this website and search for picture number 000657 and 000658.