“The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sunday I ran the Tulsa Route 66 Half Marathon. This particular distance is a huge milestone for me as it is tied for the longest distance I have ever run. My Junior year of college I took a marathon training class where our final was the Derby Days Half Marathon. It’s like everything before this was getting me back to “where I was” and everything after this Sunday is new.
Here was my training schedule for the half marathon:
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun | |
| Week 1 | Run 3 Miles | Run 4 Miles | Run 3 Miles | Run 5 Miles | |||
| Week 2 | Run 3 Miles | Run 4 Miles | Run 3 Miles | Run 6 Miles | |||
| Week 3 | Run 3 Miles | Run 5 Miles | Run 3 Miles | Run 8 Miles | |||
| Week 4 | Run 3 Miles | Run 5 Miles | Run 3 Miles | Run 10 Miles | |||
| Week 5 | Run 4 Miles | Run 5 Miles | Run 4 Miles | Run 11 Miles | |||
| Week 6 | Run 4 Miles | Run 6 Miles | Run 4 Miles | Run 12 Miles | |||
| Week 7 | Run 4 Miles | Run 5 Miles | Run 4 Miles | Run 9 Miles | |||
| Week 8 | Run 4 Miles | Run 4 Miles | Run 4 Miles | Run 8 Miles | |||
| Week 9 | Run 3 Miles | Run 3 Miles | Walk 2 Miles | Half Marathon |
The Tulsa Route 66 Half Marathon was a wonderful event with the exception of the food tent and the beer shortage. Instead of putting out dozens of church tables with post-run fruits, sweets, and carbs; they funneled all the zombified runners into a food tent that was basically designed to accommodate a church picnic and NOT 3000 energy starved sweat factories. The tent had two lines (unmarked of course), one for post-run food and one for pizza & hamburgers. For those who don’t know pizza after 13.1 miles sounds about as good as eating your own sock. It took me over 45 minutes to get into the tent and , by that time, I was more than happy to eat my own sock. Finally, after getting out of the tent, we were informed that there was no beer left for the runners.
If you want my run information you can check out my stats page, look at the overall half marathon finishers stats page, or see a picture of me on the website.
The race felt pretty good. It was cold at the beginning but by mile three I was warmed up. The last mile I started cramping because I hadn’t use the bathroom in a couple hours (hydration is good, over-hydration… not so much.) There were only a few hills and they were at the very end of the race.
My workout distances were well space and I really didn’t suffer from any injuries. A new pair of shoes helped significantly with my bruised tendon but I am glad I got them a month ago because it took my calves a couple weeks to get used to the new shoes. I have realized that I need to do some kind of race every couple months because I had a noticeable motivation problem after about 7-8 weeks. I expect my next “goal‘ to be 21-22 weeks out, so it will be really important to stay motivated.