Prior preparation prevents piss poor performance
(Or how I ran a half- marathon with only 3 weeks training).
My sister was planning on visiting us in Anchorage to see our daughter (4 months old) and to run the Big Wild Life half-marathon. My sister didn't want to do it alone though. I got roped into doing it too (to prevent my 58 year old overweight/out of shape father from having cardiac arrest on the run).
I haven't been running in a few months (we have an infant) but I have been walking the dogs on a regular basis. So I increased my mileage to do at least 3-5 miles every night. I did about a 10k (6 miles) 5 days before the half marathon (13.1 miles).
My plan to survive was to jog for about 5 minutes and then walk for 10 minutes to keep up a steady pace but not hit a wall during the race. This worked pretty well. I stopped at all of the water stations to down some gatorade and goo. I stopped about mile 11 to water the local fauna and my legs started to cramp, so I had to keep moving (same walk run pace). I finished in a little over 3 hours.
When I was in high school (I did cross country running and track) I had done a half-marathon in 1:50 and a hilly 16 mile race in about 2:45. I'm a little heavier and older now. My wife is a massage therapist, so I got massage after the race and the next day. Two days post race I was back to normal.
Next time I'm actually going to run more for training (time and distance).
Oh, and thanks to the APD officers who were controlling traffic along the course and cheering the runners on.
