Run The River Half Marathon Race Report

Here is my race report for the Run the River Half Marathon on September 22. This was the first half marathon I ever completed and I had a great time.

Training

This race was the capstone to the two other triathlons I completed this summer. I signed up for it with my brother Jon because we both wanted to race our first half marathon. I also figured since I was training for the other races I may as well do this one too.

For my training I followed a training plan that my brother-in-law Patrick (an avid runner) built for me. The plan had me running three times a week for an 11-week build. The first run of the week was an easy run, the second was a tempo or interval sprints run, and the third was a long run. The program capped off with a peak week that had 29 km of volume, including an 18 km long run, which was followed by two weeks of tapering.

It was really refreshing following a set training plan. I enjoyed being able to just check boxes rather than have to think every time I worked out about what I should do. All the interval and tempo training really kicked my butt, but I think it made a huge difference.

Unfortunately, I injured myself during the peak week. After the 18 km run, the outside of my left foot started to bother me. It turned out to be some peroneal tendonitis flaring up again (I had first had this early in the season when I ran my first ever 10k). On the one hand, it was pretty bad — I could hardly walk for a few days and I had to completely stop training for the last two weeks of tapering. On the other hand I was lucky that it was just a mild overuse injury that I could rehab myself.

Frustrated by the injury I poured my energy into rehabbing it for the two weeks before the race and I did my best to not focus on the “what ifs”. I was able to get one run in before the race weekend which gave me enough confidence to proceed.

Race Day

Race day was a beautiful and crisp fall day. I showed up early to the baseball stadium where the race was based out of and explored. In a total coincidence I ended up seeing two friends I had recently met, Grace and Caleb, who were also doing the half-marathon — more on this later. After a little bit of warming up, Jon arrived, and we finished warming up and stretching together. Already it was time to start the race and a Canadian olympian ran us out of the stadium which was neat.

This was my first mass running start and I was immediately surprised by how crowded it felt despite the relatively small size of the event. It felt like the first ten minutes was spent filtering through the crowd trying to find the right pace.

I had gone into this race with a goal time of 1:55, but I was unsure how things would go with my foot. Jon was looking to get a sub 2:00 time. We figured that we would run together as long as we could and we could always split off from each other as necessary. This ended up happening much sooner than expected.

Almost immediately from the start I was pushing a harder pace than Jon was. I attribute this mostly to our devices reading slightly differently. My watch kept reading slower than his phone and so I kept feeling the need to speedup. After about 3 km Jon called it and didn’t want to keep matching pace with me. I had to decide to forge ahead or stay back with him. Fortunately, my friends Grace and Caleb happened to be right there moving at my pace so I decided to stick with them and forge ahead.

For the next 7 km I drafted off Grace and Caleb. It was helpful to have them pacing me too — although we were going at a pace that was faster than I thought might be sustainable for the whole race. Naively I kept it up.

At the 10 km mark my friends started to hit a wall and slow down, but I was feeling good so I kept up the same pace and went out on my own. Things were going great, but again foolishly I was starting to speed up without having others pacing me.

Throughout the whole race I had a pretty simple nutrition and hydration plan. For nutrition I had three energy gels that I was taking on a 30 minute interval throughout the race in addition to a banana right before the race. For hydration I just had a sip of water each time I passed the one aid station. Unfortunately, the last time I botched the water handoff and I was very frustrated because I was very thirsty.

Things got interesting at the 16 km mark. I absolutely slammed into a wall. It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before in my life. Everything started falling apart all at once; my energy levels fell off a cliff and I felt like I couldn’t get enough air; my legs felt like lead and each step was a concerted effort; and worst of all the mental effort was immense. All I wanted to do was stop and walk. Anytime I saw someone walking I would get mad inside because I so desperately wanted to do what they were doing.

Throughout the whole race I was concerned about my foot, but miraculously it was fine the whole race. At times I felt some pain, but nothing I couldn’t push through. To keep my mind off my foot (and the rest of the pain) I spent most of the race meditating and praying. I probably recited the Lord’s Prayer 20 times.

Despite hitting the wall I gave it my all and kept pushing. My pace began to meaningfully slow, but I kept going. Once my watch ticked over the 21.1 km the mental game got even harder. As I entered into the stadium and rounded the bases to the finish line I was moving so slowly. All I could think about was crossing that finish line and lying down.

And that’s what I did. I basically just collapsed after they put a medal on me and there I laid by my family out of breath and in pain. Both my calves and quads were incredibly tense. It felt like if I moved them any more I would cramp up. I probably laid there for a good 10 minutes before I even dared to move again.

Post Race

I spent ~80% of the race in zone 5 with my heart rate pinned up to 170-180 which certainly explains why I felt so terrible. I trained well for the race, but in my hubris raced harder than I should have.

After the race I took an ice bath and did lots of stretching which helped. Even still, I could barely walk for two days after the race. Even more surprisingly I feel like it took a full three weeks for my body to completely recover to normal. I went for a short and slow run one week after the race expecting it to be fine and ended up getting destroyed by it. Next time I do a race like this, I’ll be more aware of how long it takes to fully recover. I found this running-only event to be much more taxing on my body than a mixed event like at triathlon.

Results

My final time for the half marathon was 1:53:43, a result I was very pleased with.

As per usual, if you had asked me right after the race I would have told you that I was never running again. Now with some time between me and the pain I already have aspirations of doing a marathon!