I quit running about a year and a half ago. The perpetual grind of training and racing was an unsustainable juxtaposition of physical stress and mental tedium… in other words, I was sick and tired of running! I wanted to engage in exercise that would harness my body and my mind while staying the hell away from my plantar fascia. So I quit running and I didn’t really miss it. Oh, I felt a pang of nostalgia when I’d accompany Mr. P to races, but I was content sweating on a yoga mat, taking outdoor walks with my French podcasts, and reading the New York Times while pedaling away on a spinning bike. And my life seemed to get just a little bit less Type A.
And then, one day this past summer, I was hiking in the Middlesex Fells, feelin’ pretty energized, when I spontaneously started to run. I was hopping over rocks, ducking under branches, skimming up hills and floating down hills. I was running, and it felt pretty good. Plus, I reasoned that being able to run is an evolutionary beneficial skill that could save my life, if my life suddenly emulated an action/thriller movie.
I wasn’t really prepared to run a half-marathon, but I signed up for the Philadelphia ING Rock N Roll Half Marathon (which occurred yesterday) anyway. Mr. P was running it. My 67-year old mother was running it. Hell, I can run any distance, once. I wasn’t completely sold on the idea of re-becoming a runner, so I didn’t train beyond running 6 miles about once or twice a week in the months leading up to the race. Instead, I focused on training my body to carry heavy things up steep trails, which does bestow excellent aerobic capacity but is quite a different skill than running on a flat place of concrete for 13.1 miles — an activity that puts a massive amount of stress on a very particular set of muscles. (Yes, I know that running a half-marathon without training for it goes against all common sense and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you regularly engage in insane physical feats).
Mr. P at the Finish Line
I admit: It was the whole “Rock and Roll” angle of the race that compelled me. But I quickly found out that the ING Rock N Roll races are not worth running for the music; it’s just branding, a reason to charge $90 per person under the premise that the Rock N Roll will enhance the running experience. Three of the bands that I ran past weren’t even playing (two had just finished songs and were shuffling around the stage, while one was mysteriously blaring Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” from loudspeakers.) If they were playing, well, we’re running past them and can maybe absorb 30 seconds of music. The best band that I passed was playing an Interpol song — sneaky ploy, these ones, playing an awesome song from an awesome band that 98% of the runners have never heard. Much more enjoyable were the simple, folky combos that set themselves up informally along the route to inject a minute of catchy jazz or bluegrass into my run.
Me at the Finish Line
Despite being completely cognizant of my ill-preparedness, I am still rather stunned and abashed by my poor performance. I made it to Mile 8 feeling pretty good — not a surprise, since my “training” runs were 6 miles. Around Mile 9, my legs started sending me signals that they wanted to stop, so I started alternating walking with running. By Mile 12, I was completely walking, but I was determined to run across the finish line. My chip time was 2 hours, 31 minutes and 12 seconds, meaning I averaged 11 minutes 32 seconds a mile. In terms of my place:
Overall: 12417 out of 15411 · Division (females 30-34): 1207 out of 1603 · Gender: 6403 out of 8641
“That is horrible!” I moaned to Mr. P. “My lord, I finished in the bottom quarter of my division!”
“But you didn’t train at all,” he reasoned with me. “You go running once a week. You haven’t run more than 10k in almost 2 years. And still, you finished ahead of 400 women in your age group!” Considering that’s true, I have to wonder how they were training.
(Anyway, the real winner was my 67-year old mother, who finished 8th in her division out of 20 and was right on my heels at 3 hours. Obviously she was rocking and rolling.)
