Real David H.

In more than 5 years of writing here, I have often referred back to the race that really got me hooked on long distance running — the Virginia 10 Miler.
The only problem is that the memory of that race only existed in my mind. I wrote about it on my myspace blog that I deleted sometime in 2008. The weird thing is I thought for several years that I had printed out all those blogs.

It turns out, I never did print out that race report. I copied it into a Word document that I discovered this week, along with a recap of my first half marathon that was part of my training session, details of my first ITB injury from a failed run, and a few other miscellaneous thoughts about running.

I want to share some of those posts this month. Not only is this a fun thing to do, it also provides some insight into my thoughts about running well before this blog existed and well before I ran using a GPS watch.

Without delay, here is my post from Saturday, Aug. 19, 2006, after my first half marathon, which will be the location of my 15th half marathon next weekend. I titled the post “Run Forrest, Run” and put my “current mood” as “determined.”

* * *

So my goal this summer was to train for the Virginia 10 Miler that’s in September. As I have trained, my goal has become more specific to run it in an hour and a half.

A 9-minute mile pace seemes reasonable considering most of my 5Ks have been under that pace. But then came this summer’s races. I did a one-miler in just over 7 minutes and came away somewhat disappointed. Then a five-mile, fairly flat race in 41:07 (an 8:14 pace). That made me realize that a 9-minute mile pace for 10 miles was very attainable.

Then came today. Since today is my scheduled “long run” for the week — 12 miles — I signed up for Lynchburg’s half marathon (which is 13.1 miles). I’ve never come close to running that far. Last week’s long run was about 10 miles and in my head another three miles seemed like forever at the time.

I went out with the goal to run it like I normally run at my training pace, which is probably about 9:30-minute miles. My basic goal was to finish it in a couple of hours.

At the end of my first mile, I was at 9:11. Fairly comfortable, but I thought that I could step it up a little bit. So for the next couple miles I got my pace to about 9 minutes a mile. About half way through, I was under an hour. I knew then that finishing in two hours was certainly going to happen. When I got to the equivalent of a 5k (3.1 miles) to go, I thought, OK, I’ve done the 10 miler (which was in 1 hour, 28 minutes) and only a 5K left.

It was like I was in a weird zone. I’ve learned in my training to treat the person in front of me as if they’re the ones working hard and they’re pulling me along. Today, it worked. Even though I was passed several times, I passed many people using those thoughts. It’s sort of the NASCAR way of thinking at Daytona, by drafting the person in front of you and shooting around them faster than they’re going. At the same time, though, the basically flat course seemed like I was going uphill and that hill kept getting steeper.

So, I finished in 1 hour, 55 minutes and a few extra seconds. … which is under a 9-minute mile pace. The course was fairly flat, yes, but mentally I’ve already achieved bigger goals this summer than I set out for.

There’s four weeks to go until the 10 Miler. That’s four weeks to continue getting stronger, both physically and mentally. My body is screaming at me now for running 13-plus miles this morning, but it’s a good feeling. I’ll be sore tomorrow, but I’m already looking forward to going out and running for an hour Monday.

And through all this, I keep reminding myself that three years ago I was nearly 220 pounds and the thought of running was only a high school memory. Now… well, it’s just hard to even put into words what this feels like.