Running...

Why, for the love of crumb cake, did I sign up for another half-marathon?!?

Oh yeah... because I'm an idiot.

Last year, during the training for my last half-marathon, I quickly realised that running distances over fifteen kilometres just isn't my idea of fun. It actually really sucks. So why do it again?

It's all because that octogenarian beat me in my last half-marathon. The hell with octogenarian -- he could have been a nonagenarian, or a centenarian, for all I know. The age categories only go up to "80+". While I am under no delusions that I'm a good long-distance runner -- I'm well aware I'm slow as molasses -- some caveman, competitive short-circuit in my brain drew the line at being slower than an eighty-year old.

But why eighty? Why not seventy-five? Or seventy? Or sixty? I was also beaten by one guy between seventy-five and seventy-nine. I was beaten by three men between seventy and seventy-four. And I was utterly destroyed by more than a few runners who were sixty and up. Why then, did I draw an arbitrary line in the sand and have a conniption when I found out that one, singular, eighty-plus-year-old man beat me by all of forty-two seconds?

Well, I never said that my decision was rational.

I signed up in February. At the time, my goal was "to beat everybody less than two decades short of celebrating their centenary."

Yeah. That's a completely bullshit goal.

I mean, how do you plan for something like that? Do I just assume that I have to run a half-marathon forty-three seconds faster? That's hardly a challenge, especially since I kind of half-assed my training going into the final month last year, and my time suffered for it. What if there were more capable, super senior-citizens running this year (former long-distance competitors in the 1948 Olympics, maybe) who could run the 21.096 kilometres in 2:07? 2:05? 2:02? 1:56??? What if it's the other way around and the handful of eighty-year-olds competing this year actually perform the way eight-year-olds are supposed to perform in my mind, and crawl to the finish in 2:15. 2:30???

Fortunately, on occasion, I realise when I'm being a total moron, so I tweaked my goal way back in May. My revised goal is to run the half-marathon in under two hours. If anybody around the age of my grandparents can beat that time, I'll happily tip my hat to them.

Plugging my personal-best 5K time (0:25:45 -- set back in May) into the McMillan Running Calculator tells me that a two-hour half-marathon should be within my reach. But, to run the half-marathon in under two hours, I'm looking to shave almost ten minutes off my previous time. That's just a daunting number. As such, I'm skeptical.

What's also worrying me are the results of my last six weeks of training. I'm having trouble seeing how I can keep up a 5:40 per kilometre pace over the entire distance. On my 21K long run two weekends ago, I ran the first 15K at an easy 6:30/K pace before trying to speed up to my goal pace of 5:40/K over the last 6K. I succeeded in speeding up for the first 3K of that distance before just losing energy and slowing right back down over the last 3K. In aggregate, I only managed to lower my pace to 6:00/K over that distance.

Last Saturday, I shortened my long run to 15K, but wanted to maintain a higher tempo over the entire distance. I started out at the 5:40/K clip, but slowed down to a 6:00-6:15/K pace between the third and eleventh kilometres. With around 3.5K to go, I decided to speed up, to gun for a time below 1:30:00, and a 6:00/K pace over the length of the run. Uncooperative traffic lights may have had a minor role in foiling that goal and I finished in 1:31:05, gasping for air as I sprinted the last 200 metres. 6:03/K. I wasn't pleased.

My only ray of hope was that I finished my 7.7K Fartlek run with an overall pace of 5:37/K, and still feeling like I had plenty of gas left in the tank. But it was only 7.7K. I'd have to keep up that effort for three times as long to meet my goal.

This goal has, to my chagrin, focused my current training regimen almost entirely on running. I'm running at least three times a week, and four to five times most weeks. Long runs. Tempo runs. Fartleks. Hill running. Time-trials. Too much bloody running. My strength training is down to a hour each week and merely geared at maintaining upper-body strength. My bike rides are down to once a week. I haven't played rugby in almost two months.

This kind of sucks -- I spend long runs wishing I was on my bike -- but I only have five weeks of this to go. Until then, I have to focus if I'm going to have any chance at crossing the finish line before 10am on October 19th.

Fortunately, I'm not completely burnt-out on the running. Giving up is obviously not an option, even if I dread the thought of another evening or early morning pounding pavement.

When it's all said and done, maybe I won't make it under two hours. Maybe we'll be running in a torrential downpour. Maybe we'll be running in an October heat-wave. Maybe other conditions will conspire against me. Maybe my body just isn't capable of running that distance under two hours. But, if I don't make my goal time, I'm not going to let it be because I didn't train hard enough.