My Seattle Half-Marathon Experience

Last year I wanted to run Seattle half marathon on behalf of Asha Seattle and thanks to my busy schedule and laziness, I didn’t even begin proper training. This year I was so determined to run the half marathon that my office schedule didn’t matter to me.

Asha volunteers train with a Seattle based coach named Chuck Bartlett (www.runchuckit.com) and I decided to try coaching under him. I started coaching almost 18 weeks before the race day. The coach is very good, easily approachable, knows about Asha and most importantly has the experience of coaching first timers. 

During the first month of the training, I learned about our Asha group runners, tried to bring my body into running rhythm, and most importantly I tried to force myself into 4-5 runs every week. It was very tough, but trust me it paid off in the end. With fellow runners and a couple of good running mates always with me, I ran 5 times a week during the first month. Most of my runs were 20-30 minute runs and I didn’t even track my pace. Longest run was around 5.5 miles at pretty slow pace of say 15 mins/mile. I used my old shoes for running and had no problems either with the shoes or with my legs – that’s because I was hardly running fast enough or long enough.

Second month was all about keeping the momentum, not breaking the schedule, increase the distances and listening to the coach and other senior runners. But I had to miss a couple of weekend runs as I traveled, but made up for them with weekday runs. Not surprisingly as I started running longer distances at improved pace, say around 13-14 mins/mile, I had to reduce the number of run days in a week from 5 to 4. My longest run during the second month was 9 miles and I felt miserable after that. I was fortunate enough to recover quickly though. I experienced knee and shin pains during this month, but none of them were bad enough for me to visit a doctor or stop training. I just had to ice my legs enough after the runs.

Starting from third month, I reduced the number of my run days a week to 3, which I shouldn’t have done. 2 of those days were with the coach and the group and I just had one other day to run myself. I saved rest of the days to recover from my runs – I think that’s because of the nature of my body – it just needs lot of rest. During the first weekend of the third month, I ran for 10 miles and tapered down the distances the next two weeks and went back to 10 miles in the fourth week. So, distance wise, this month was the hardest. But, I signed up for some Asha organizational activities and that forced me to be a consistent runner every week. My body took time to adjust -my ankles pained, knees pained, shins pained and feet arches pained. Also during this month, I understood that my race speed is 10-10.5 mins/mile and wanted to improve it to 9 mins/mile. I thought I could easily do it with my super regular training schedule. But, I made a mistake – I bought new shoes during the second week of this month. I ran 10 miles with my new shoes in the last week of this month. I started having really bad arch pains and ankle pains – still not sure whether I had those pains because of my new shoes or because I ran long distances often during this month. I bet it’s because of both.

I started the first week of the fourth month with 12.5 mile run at 10 mins/mile pace. I felt extremely happy after the run. But, I felt my pains so badly that I had to start taking Ibuprofen. Pains eased, I tapered my distances down and resumed schedule – 3 times a week and sometimes just 2 times a week. But, I continued using my new shoes and as I was approaching end of the fourth month, my pains didn’t ease and I had to visit a podiatrist. X-rays were negative, but doctor put me on 3 weeks of 800 mg Ibuprofen 3 times a day. I then realized that these sprains and pains might be due to my new shoes. So, I went back to my old shoes 3 weeks before the race and started running 6-8 mile distances.

During the last two weeks of the training, I just survived with my medication and shorter runs on my old shoes. I still do not know whether it was a good decision to switch back to my old shoes. I just wanted to take out new shoe problems out of the picture. I also felt I peaked 2-3 weeks in advance for the race. But I couldn’t do much other than just believing in myself and resting myself for the race. If I didn’t have these problems, I would have tried to improve my speed from 10 mins/mile to 8-9 mins/mile. But it didn’t happen. My target was to just finish the race, not to finish the race in a target time.

I loaded myself with a few extra carbs during the last week, continued ibuprofen medication, rested very well and just ran smaller distances such as 3-4 miles. I didn’t do anything great the night before the race. I couldn’t sleep that well, but it didn’t matter. My target was to finish the race and finish it well for Asha.

The race day was just gorgeous in terms of weather. All Asha east-side runners car pooled together. It was an astounding feeling to start the run among thousand others in Seattle downtown. I wore one extra light weight long sleeve shirt, which I shouldn’t have wore. But I tied to my waist during the race and I felt okay. I started the race with 4-5 other similar paced runners and we wanted to keep our speed at 10-11 mins/mile during the first 6-8 miles and then wanted to make up the pace during the last 4-6 miles. But we all got separated except me and another girl. Our pace remained the same. Two others moved in front and another girl lagged behind a bit. We two couldn’t make up the target time in the end and we finished in 2 hours and 16 minutes timeframe with about 16 seconds apart – about 5 minutes more than what we aimed at i.e 10 mins/mile.

After the race, I was hardly able to stand. I ate 3 jumbo bananas, drank 3 bottles of water and ate 2 small cups of pineapple – only then I had enough potassium and water in my body. I felt extremely happy on receiving the finisher’s medal. Sure my pace wasn’t super, but it was the first time and I was very glad to at least complete the race. I discontinued my medication two days after the race and didn’t run for at least 3-4 weeks. I completed recovered.

All in all, the half-marathon taught me to be persistent. I was also extremely happy to raise some funds for Asha for my half marathon. 

Lessons/Suggestions for future runners, especially first time runners:

1. Do not try new shows in the middle of the training. Buy new shoes 5-6 months before the race and get comfortable in those shoes at least a few times before starting the training.
2. Run at least once on the marathon race route. You will get used to the elevations and you can plan your pace accordingly. Do this in the middle of your training schedule.
3. Do not overdo your training if you are running your first race. Stick to basics and do not plan to overachieve or complete with senior or fast runners.
4. 14-15 weeks of training should peak you at the right time for a half-marathon race. I trained 4 weeks extra but 3.5-4 months should give you ample amount of time.
5. Never miss your training runs, especially group runs and runs under your coach’s guidance. These runs will motivate you. You will learn to run with the group. You will make friends. Tempos, Strides, Time Trials and Hills – you have to do them all.
6. Get used to lighter clothing (one or two thin layers in winter) – you will love it and never go back to wearing trousers and multiple thick layers or sweaters.
7. Run at least 3 times every week. Start with 5 times a week and as you increase your distances, you will need to reduce the number of times. Training schedule says you can run for 5 times a week. But 3-4 should be good enough. Do not run for less than 3 times a week, unless you get injured, in which case you need to rest as much as possible.
8. Drink enough water on the race day and during the training. Plan yourself not to stop for a bathroom break on the race day. Take care of it before the race, preferably at your home before you start. Otherwise, you will have long lines and lose 5-10 minutes
9. Stretch yourself before and after every run for at least 10 minutes. Trust me it will avoid your injuries. 
10. Last but not least, enjoy your runs. Keep motivating your fellow runners and keep motivated. If you don’t enjoy your runs at the beginning, just be persistent and you will learn to enjoy your runs.

Hareesh Veldandi
Dec 24th 2008