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Thursday, May 7, 2009

The Irish bullet...by Lil

So, 3/4th of us here on the blog have run half marathons (the other one just runs up Pikes Peak). One of our brother-in-laws, lets call him Flex - just finished his first half last Sunday. I sent him some questions and here's his answers - now, I'd love to post my nephew's responses too since he was Flex's racing partner, but he's way too busy taking finals this week...I told him to be an art major.
Anyway, a couple things. First off, Flex is one of those super fit, played sports in college people. But he does make a mean margarita so if we ever get too brooding and jealous of his ridiculously low body fat he just starts mixing us drinks and soon we are all happy as can be, well maybe not happy but are so busy snarfing down salsa that we can't talk then we pass out with Nugget. Another thing, he finished in 1:38 - which is fast, way fast - like a smidgen under 7:30 splits. So here's the questions...
Why did you decide to do it? Do you hate yourself?
Did for these reasons: to test my physical and mental limits to a new place--someplace I've never ventured.  And I only mildly dislike myself. 
What was the hardest part of training?
The hardest part of training (mentally) was running for such long periods and (physically) running for such long periods.  It was both mentally a challenge to combat boredom, and physically tough for the body to acclimate to all the additional mileage.
If you were going to start your training again what, if anything, would you do differently? What was your average mileage?
Done differently, I would have done more training at the actual time of day the race took place (0700). I only trained after about 1000 and my body was not accustomed to running at that hour--mainly nutritionally. I was used to running only after about 4 hours after eating breakfast--not 1 hour. Average mileage per week was 20.  Long run was 12.
What would have been the absolute worst thing to eat right before the race?
Worst thing to eat before the race would be Chilli's Big Mouth BBQ Bacon Double Cheeseburger.
In the race what was your easiest mile/section? Hardest mile/section? Easiest mile was probably mile 4-5.  Hardest was 10-11
At the hardest part of the race, what did you do to ignore the pain & finish? 
To ignore the pain and finish, I called myself bad names, asked how I would feel if I slowed down and missed my goal by a few seconds, and told myself I only had 7-8 minutes to go and I could do anything for that long.
Did any of the course, spectators or other runners stand out to you? 
The parts of the course that stood out to me were the ritzy homes in the nice neighborhood, the golf course we ran past, and the nearly full sidelines of crowd along the entire course.  Other runners that stood out were the ladies (and men) who continued on for the full marathon as I was turning off towards my finish line.
When finishing, how did you feel? (physically & emotionally) What body part hurt the most right after the race?  The next day? 
When finished I was physically sore already (my legs) and mentally relieved to be finished. My quads killed me for 2 days after.
Can you compare any part of the training or race to any of your past athletic endeavors? 
I can somewhat compare this event to other times playing a sport (football 2-a-days) where it would have been nice to just drop out and sit with the folks drinking mint juleps.
What percent of the whole thing was mental? 
I feel like the entire experience was 90% mental.  I was already in pretty good shape.
Would you do it again?
I've at least moved from "I'll never do it again" to "I don't think I'll do it again."
Congrats Flex - great job. I'm not even going to think about how fast you ran...I'll take that margarita now. 

1 comment:

  1. Way to go, Flex! Kind of makes me want to have a drink, then take a nap when I think of how quickly he ran it.

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