I’m finally getting around to recapping my latest half marathon- The Happy Half in Springfield, OH (yes, THAT Springfield).
In May, I ran the Flying Pig half marathon and I training was difficult for me during the school year. Still, I managed to have a GREAT race but missed my time goal (under 2 hours) by about 1 minute. I was BUMMED! My friend told me that I just needed to sign up for another one to try again. So I figured that if I signed up for a late summer/early fall race, I would be able to carry my momentum from training for the Flying Pig, train all summer, and easily hit my time goal!
Well…spoiler alert: I did not. I did spend quite a bit of time over the summer training, but it was a very humid/muggy summer and my runs were laborious and not fun. I was so disappointed that I wasn’t feeling (and looking) AMAZING, but I still pressed on towards my goal!
About a month before the half marathon, I received our school calendar and found out that meet the teacher night (hi, I’m the teacher!) was on Friday night…the night before the half marathon. Theo also realized that he would be out of town that weekend. And then I consulted one other important calendar and realized that joy of all joys..I would also be starting my period on or around the same day of the half marathon. I honestly almost backed out when I realized that I had all of those things sorta stacked against me. I wish I could have just let go of my time goal and enjoyed the full run. I know it sounds crazy to most people, but I really do actually enjoy running.
So, my parents filled in as MVPs of the weekend and helped me with both meet the teacher night and Saturday morning of the half marathon by keeping the kids for me. I ended up spending the night at their house with all the kids since they actually live closer to Springfield that my house.
Friday night I crawled into bed around 9:30 and set my alarm for 5:00am. I got up and drove to the start area…and I was literally the first person there. HAHA. In my defense it was because the Flying Pig was a HUGE race with 60k runners. This race had maybe 150 runners? So I thought we had to be there super early, but this one was very casual and laid-back. Dang it, I could’ve slept for another hour haha! Oh well. I went back to my car and read a book for 40 minutes or so. About that time other people started showing up and my friend Lisa arrived so we stretched and warmed up and got our bibs pinned on. I made sure to wait until the last minute to go to the bathroom and change my period supplies so that it would hopefully last the whole run without having to be changed. But I also carried two extra in my shorts pocket just in case. I was drained and tired, but overall feeling pretty good.
We got to the start line and off we went!
The first five miles I was feeling GREAT! I had a really good pace and the weather was lovely. There were some spectators, but we were mostly just running around the city – sometimes on a bike path, sometimes in city streets or on sidewalks and occasionally in a park or a neighborhood. The path was somewhat hilly- but not as bad as the Flying Pig!
Around mile 6 I started to struggle, which is pretty typical for me. I usually excel at miles 1-5 and then struggle miles 6-10 and then get my second wind and fly through miles 10-13. But in this race I hit mile 6 and never really got a second wind. I just kept pushing myself but knew pretty early on that I wasn’t going to hit the 2 hour goal.
I ended up finishing at just around 2:05. So, not terrible…but not my goal and a big disappoint to me that I did worse this race than my last one. I felt so bummed that my training hadn’t paid off and I felt like I had wasted my time all summer and everyone else’s time that weekend to run this race. And then I felt dumb that I felt bummed.
This was honestly my least favorite half marathon that I’ve run. I think it was more of a mental issue than a physical one. I honestly didn’t get the runners high after this, and I still haven’t even considered signing up for another one. I honestly have only run a handful of times since this 13.1 and on the latest run I fell and hurt my knee so bad it’s been hard to walk!
I’m not sure if I should get back out there and train again, or if I should just hang up my running hat for now and start again when my kids are a little bigger and able to stay home by themselves while I go for a run. Any tips for me? Anyone else ever had the opposite of a runners high- a runners low? Because that’s kind of where I feel like I am right now! Hopefully the love of running will come back to me soon, and I will feel motivated to go running again!
