So… I had a feeling this day would come but I didn’t think it would come so fast.  I’ve been running 5Ks and a couple of 10Ks this year and felt alright doing so, not great times but about what I expected and I’ve been slowly improving.  Then I started running and walking a bit more during the off hours over the past few weeks and I began to realize that even if I can’t run forever, I sure can walk for a pretty long time without fault.  That’s about when I started keeping up with my pace outside of races and noted that even if I walked the entire way, I could finish a half marathon earlier than most cut off times (usually 3.5-4 hours).  So of course that got me thinking…  If I can walk an entire half marathon course, why can’t I learn to run it or at least wog it (job/walk)?  I mean, even if I jog parts and walk a lot, I can creep up into the 12 minute mile category and easily finish within 3 hours which in my dreams was my initial goal to begin with should I ever attempt a half marathon.  My ultimate goal would be to finish it, and hopefully within 4 hours, but theoretically I could potentially do it within 3 hours which still isn’t bad for a beginner/novice.  And if I committed myself to running 51 half marathons, surely I could improve on that time just like I’ve been improving on my 5 and 10Ks.  Sounds plausible right?

Well it doesn’t really matter, because I’ve pretty much already talked myself into attempting half marathons and converting my 10K challenge into a Half Marathon challenge.  I told you several months ago when I first started this that that could be a real possibility, that I’d want to increase my challenge to something a bit more challenging should I not feel challenged enough with my 3 and 6 miles races.  Not that I really didn’t feel challenged.  But in all honesty, 5Ks have practically become easy now (for me at least), 30 minute finish times and very little recovery effort.  Trust me, you aren’t going to see me running along at a 6 or even 7 minute mile.  If I’m lucky, maybe I can work my way past 9 into the 8ish category, but that’s still asking a lot.  Now 10Ks certainly were more of a challenge (especially locating them at convenient times and places, and running up and down hills). But after doing some research and actually stopping to relive the 10Ks I completed, I realized that the recovery time from them was pretty short too.  They’re worthy of any challenge, but if I’m up to making it just a little bit tougher on me where I have to push myself even harder than ever before or at least harder than any time since after college and Tigerband, I say why not!

As I started increasing my distance, I got curious about the half and starting doing research.  Mainly I looked into some training plans, some other racing blogs and some past results from some popular events.  That was when I came up with a few assumptions.

#1.  There are probably more half marathons (quantity and popularity) out there than 10Ks.

#2.  Most had many thousands of participants (which I’m somewhat starting to like) and most of the same had very generous course limits (usually 4 hours, although most people finish easily within 4 hours).  But for a first marathon, this was good to know, just in case I got burned and failed miserably.

#3.  Halfs require much more training and distance running.  All but the elite runners (through their blogs) appear to struggle at some point (mentally, physically or both) and most seem to have respectable recovery times of a few days to a week or even longer.

#4.  They’re survivable!  You just have to want to do it.  13.1 miles is not easy, otherwise everyone would do it, but it can be done if I’m determined enough.

Sure I’m not wanting to kill myself, but I like the idea of pushing myself as hard as I can safely go, and the idea of traveling across the country to run for 3 hours and hurt from it for a week afterwards surprisingly fits more into my idea of a challenge than just showing up for a 60-70 minute jog and barely feeling a thing afterwards.  Having said that, I admit that running across the Golden Gate Bridge was pretty awesome in itself (10K in April).  But for many people, myself included, the harder I push myself to obtain a goal, the better it feels when I’ve obtained it.  I have this feeling that if I can make it thru one half and continue towards 50 more, I’ll ultimately enjoy this challenge and the memories of completing each will be that much more engraved into my brain.

What do you think?  Do you think this is plausible or am I just kidding myself?  I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

A couple fate items to note: A local half marathon training group is starting up this coming Monday which I didn’t learn about until nearly immediately after I had talked myself into upgrading my challenge.  And as far as picking my first half marathon to train for, well, I’ve already had a couple of images cross my path that pretty much confirm the choice.  But until it’s set in stone, I won’t announce it just yet.  I still have time to fail; but that is not part of the plan.  Failure has already been deleted from my training plan.