Like so many days when I plan on doing something big (see here and here), last saturday morning was raining. This, along with the fact that I have had several epic failures (see here and here) when trying to do something big, was not super encouraging for what I had planned for the day.
My plan was to do my own unofficial half Ironman. For those of you who don't know, a half Ironman consists of a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride, and a half marathon (13.1 mile run). This plan had started last fall, when Connie and I had decided that we needed some motivation to exercise in the winter and so had signed up to do an official half Ironman in St. George, UT.
Unfortunately, a few months before that was to happen, we found out Grace was to be one of the lead role in play that same day. Now I would be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to miss the play, but I didn't want to lose my awesomest dad ever status, so we decided to drop out of the St. George Half Ironman. And then we decided to make our own Half Ironman, which we dubbed "Ironboy" (because it not a full Ironman, but still pretty darn tough).
So that is why I found myself contemplating whether I should postpone this Ironboy to another more sunny day. But by the time to leave to go do the swim came around, it had stopped raining and I felt at peace with the idea of trying to do it that day.
My plan was to try to finish it around 8 hours. I wanted to try to finish the swimming in under 40 minutes. Then I figured I would take it pretty easy on the bike and try to finish in somewhere just over three hours. Then after factoring in time to change between events and such, that would then leave me with four hours to do the half marathon. Now four hours may sound like a ton of time to do a half marathon, but I figured I would be walking most of it, since I not really supposed to run due to my bad knee. I figured I would try to run a little, but if my knee started to hurt, I would just walk.
I did the swim at our local rec center. I paced it exactly as planned and finished the 1.2 miles in 39 minutes and 12 seconds and didn't feel much fatigue from it at all. I went into the locker room changed and walked out to find that it was once again pouring rain. Boo. Connie was there with Jonah and my bike. I wasn't to keen on the fact it was raining, but I was already done with first part, so I wasn't going to stop now.
Now I could probably write a whole separate post about that 56 mile bike ride. About the driving rain, my feet going numb, having to find a place to go pee, having my seat keep coming loose and almost falling off. About all the grease in my rear hub being gone and it making grinding sounds like it was about to explode any minute. About how my watch display stop working because of the wet and cold. About my arms being so stiff I had a hard time getting gels out of my jersey pocket.
But since I have already written several blog posts about epic rides in the rain, I will just sum it up by saying by the end I was soaking wet and numb, my time was a slower than I had original planned, BUT I felt okay and was ready to do the half marathon.
It took me a while to get out of my soaking wet clothes and find some dry clothes. By the time I left my house to start the run, I had been going for 4 hours and 17 minutes. I was feeling pretty good and it had finally stopped raining and I thought, "Maybe if I am lucky, I can finish the half marathon in under 3:13 and finish in under 7 and a half hours, that would be pretty sweet".
I set a timer on my watch so that it would alternate between going off ever 2 minutes and every 1 minute. My plan was to walk for 2 minutes, run for 1 minute, walk for 2 minutes, run for 1 minute, etc, etc. Now I must pause at this point and emphasis that my run training for this Ironboy had been pretty minimal due to my bad knee. It had only consisted of using this 2 to 1 pattern for an hour twice a week. The only time I had run continually for more than a few minutes in the last 4 years was for a 5k that I did about a month ago. And that had felt like I was pushing it.
So anyway, I set off on my walk/run. I reached the first place where Connie was going to meet me which was at mile 3. I walked fast enough that I actually got there a little early and had to wait for Connie a minute. I checked my time and I was averaging about 14 minutes a mile. I did the calculation s in my head and figured out that if I kept that up, I would finish the run in almost exactly 3 hours. That idea excited me, but I decided not to get too excited yet, because I was pretty tired and I didn't want to feel let down if I didn't finish the run in 3 hours, I wanted to be happy for just finishing.
When I got to mile 5, I checked my pace again. I was still on pace to finish in 3 hours and I felt good and I decided to let myself get excited about finishing in three hours. If I finished in 3 hours then my total time would 7:17 and that would be much faster than I had planned. That would be pretty cool. Than the thought came to me, "You know what would be even cooler, to finish under 7 hours". Then I rejected that thought "No, you are just setting yourself up for disappointment, you would have to start running a whole lot more to make that, and you can't run that far, just enjoy the fact your going to finish".
But part of me really liked the idea of finishing under 7 hours. So I said to myself, "Self, if at the next pit stop (at 7 miles) you feel good, maybe let's consider it". I reached mile 7 about 15 minutes earlier than I had told Connie so she wasn't there yet, but I knew she would see me on the road. I had 6.1 miles to go. I looked at my time. If I wanted to finish in under 7 hours I would have to finish that 6.1 miles in an 1 hour and 4 minutes. That meant almost 10 minute miles, which meant I was going to have to do a whole lot less walking. I decided to switch the running and walking segments and started running two minutes and walking one minute.
After about a mile I meet Connie and got a quick swig of water and a banana and then told her I was not going to make any more pit stops and I was going to try to finish under 7 hours.
The half marathon course I had set up, basically consisted of a ten mile out and back from our house, followed by a 3.1 mile loop. When I passed by our house, Connie and kids where in the van cheering me on. The start of the 3.1 mile loop starts with a big hill and I walked/jogged to the top of the hill and then checked my time. My total time so far was 6:31. That meant I had 29 minutes to go just under 3 miles. Walking and running was not going to cut it. So I decided I was going to just have to run the rest of the way. My intellectual mind told me "that's not possible, you have been going for six and half hours and you have only run three miles without stopping once in the last four years". But my body told me that I could and I was fueled by the fury of failed events past. So I ran. I tried not to look at my watch, I tried to just run as fast as I could. I reached the strange paradoxical state where I felt super tired and yet felt invincible. Connie and the kids kept driving ahead of me and jumping out of the car and cheering me on. It was awesome. As I started coming down the final stretch towards our house, I asked Connie what time it was, "1:50" she said, I had started the whole thing at 7:00 am, so I knew I had 10 minutes to make it under 7 hours. I was pretty sure I was going to make now, but I didn't slow down. Finally, our house came into view and I ran hard to the very end. I hit my stop watch and looked at it. 6:55 total time. I had finished the run in 2:38, and the last 3 mile in ~24 minutes.
BOOYAH!
