Yesterday (Feb. 10, 2008) was the Half at the Hamptons half marathon in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. I went out to run it and Kris and the kids came to cheer me on (and to play on the snowy beach, eat pizza and swim in the heated pool at the Ashworth by the Sea afterward!). I finished the race faster than my revised goal, which was about 30 seconds per mile faster than my original goal when I started training back in November.
The weather was strange but not nearly as bad as it could have been. It was calm and sunny and almost warm before the race began. Near the 11 a.m. start it felt like the temperature was starting to drop, and by the time I hit mile nine, where the course comes out onto the ocean and heads down Route 1A back to the start at the Ashworth, it had started to spit rain. The rain turned into wet heavy, face-drenching, eye stinging snow. And then the wind started. I lucked out, I think, and finished before it got really bad.
This was the inaugural running of this race, and I’m definitely game to try it again next year. The organizers did an awesome job. On a sad note, though, one man, a veteran distance runner and cyclist named Bill Paradis, died after collapsing on the course at mile 6. Here’s a story about him at Fosters.com. My prayers go out to him, his family and friends.
The course was beautiful, winding through Hampton Beach and North Hampton, with the last four miles south along the coast. The race is described as relatively flat, but there were plenty of hilly moments … with a good climb from mile three to five and some vigorous dips and spikes between five and eight.
I felt great for the first eight miles or so (I was going to follow the eight-minute mile pace runner, but after the first half mile felt I had the steam to go faster) and then really wrestled to hold my pace on the last stretch, from mile nine on. The last two miles for me were running through sheer exhaustion; I had no wind and not much muscle left; it was a meditative, spiritual-feeling, and at the same time grueling experience.
My time was 1 hour, 42 minutes, 37 seconds, a 7-minute-50-second-per-mile pace. I finished 171 out of the 829 runners listed on the race results at Cool Running (thought there were more signed up…?), and 30th in my age group. A long way from the front of the pack, but something I was really proud of compared to prior, shorter races, and in terms of general gains made while training for this.
Which is maybe one of the things I love so much about running, and all the more so after this year’s efforts. At least for a recreational runner, it’s all about racing yourself. Your time doesn’t mean anything compared to anyone else on the course – only compared to your last race, and your training runs. Which allows you to be on a course with a thousand people, and be just as proud and excited for each one of them as you are for yourself – when someone passes you, or when you pass someone. It feels great to look over and think – you go, man – and feel like your all in it together, all racing as a team against your own individual times.
I trained for this race harder and more seriously than I’ve ever trained for any race, and not necessarily just in mileage, but in effort – almost every single training session I did, I tried to run that much harder and faster than the one before. All of the runs were just out of my comfort zone. And once I got habituated to that, I got hooked on it.
Back in Nov. 2007 when I decided to sign up for the race, I was running 3 times a week, 3 miles each, at between an 8:30 and 9 min. pace. My first five and six mile training runs were at 9:30s. It felt so good to watch those seconds come off the mile times, even as the runs started getting longer. I was amazed that the chronic injuries I suffered as a three-times-a-week runner all went away as mileage increased. The publisher at the paper and my mid-week lunch-time running partner, Terry, had told me a number of times that it was all about accumulating mileage, and he was right. Nine miles a week left me limping. Thirty miles a week leaves my legs feeling good.
There are so many more things I’d love to write about this race, about training (which feels a lot like guitar practice to me in that it can take what’s physically impossible one day and make it possible weeks or months later) and about running in general. I’d also like to write about how much it meant to me that Kris wanted to bring the kids out for this, and make an event like this a family time – a tradition for us, one that will grow through my races, Kris’ races and someday, the kids’ races! Yesterday was a milestone day for me on a lot of levels beyond just a first full half marathon (I ran one just under a half in Bedford five or six years ago, but much slower). So many things to write, and so little time. It’s Monday and I took a day off from work so we could stay over in Hampton after the race, and now we’re finally home and the kids are napping and Kris is at the gym and I’d better get out and bring in some wood and toss my running gear in the wash. After all, tomorrow’s day one of training for the next one!
Tags: Half at the Hamptons
