Race report: Wisconsin Half Marathon

Jim Voce

NW MSM

Today was my first race at this distance. As a matter of fact, it was the first time I have ever gone this distance on my own two feet in any form, let alone a race.  Saturday, May 01 was the date of the Wisconsin Marathon and Half Marathon.  I signed up last year with the delusions of having a full six months of training behind me to prepare for the race.  Unfortunately, walking Pneumonia and pulled lower back problems shortened that training to two months of real progress, two months of reduced training and illness followed by a month of recovery and rebuilding and a final really short month of training, with a week taken away by a short taper.  However, with the injuries and illness behind me, I felt as prepared as could be and happy to be racing.

My morning started out the same way a Triathlon morning does, a full glass of water and a banana while the whole wheat bread was toasting.  Covered the toast with PB&J and washed it down with poweraid (blue) on the drive to Kenosha.  For this race, I purchased a belt with 4-8oz bottles on it; two were filled with Infinite Nutrition’s formula made by the owner after I tried to make my own and failed; the other two were filled with de-fizzed Mountain Dew.  On my few training runs with this new bottle setup, I tried water, poweraid and cola.  I figured that I really love Mountain Dew and since my recent training diet had kept me from it, now was the time for the Dew to make a comeback.

Got to Kenosha in plenty of time for the race and went to the gear check to check a t-shirt I was prepared to lose if it came to it.  Much less gear for a running race, in fact, no gear other than what was on me, pretty cool.   6:55 AM, the National Anthem plays, I wish more people would put their hand over their hearts for this. With all of the bleeding heart liberals and green loving environmental nuts out there, this country could use a little more honest-to-goodness patriotism and pride in America.  The Mayor of Kenosha was also out there to wish the runners a good race.  The buzzer sounded and we were off.  My plan was a run-walk which is the Jeff Galloway method.  Unfortunately, in the excitement of getting prepared, I forgot my Gym boss timer which I have set to alarm to change from run to walk.  After a couple of miles, I was keeping pace with the same people and used their progress to gauge my pace, especially the runners who kept looking at their watches, Garmin’s and HRM’s and who were going as slow as I was.  At mile 4, I stopped to retie my shoe and take a Gu pack (tri-berry) and some water.  Water from the event was the only water I had, since my belt was filled with other stuff.  Everything was going great.  At mile 8 it was time for another Gu pack and some more water.  I had finished 1 and about ¾ of my second bottle, getting ready to start on the Mountain Dew.

Someone in the MSM community had mentioned “The Secret” as an inspirational motivation and I purchased this CD-book and had been listening to it while commuting.  For the first few miles, I was using the secret by thanking the universe for all of the good fortune that got me to this point: my family’s support, my health, my ability to train and train with good company, the nice weather we were having and all of the other racers who I silently wished the best to; the volunteers who I thanked at every opportunity, the birds singing and all of nature that I was part of that morning.  This kept me moving along and happy up to about mile 10 and a half. 

Slightly before mile 11, I felt that the blessings of nature were wearing off and the reality of the distance and my relatively short training period were starting to catch up.  At mile 11, I started to walk longer than jog and by mile 12 my calves had begun to cramp.  I toughed through about half of Mile 12 and could no longer run/jog without feeling cramps in my calves.  Mountain Dew did nothing to help and even though I had a Gu for mile 12, I forgot about it.  Walking to the finish line was full of encouragement from others that were there to cheer on their family and friends, some of who they knew others like me they did not but were cheering for us all none the less. 

I saw the mile 26 marker then the mile 13 marker and knew that there was only 1/10 of a mile left.  Down the chute to the finish line I tried to run over the finish timer but could not.  I could only think of those in the Ironman videos that were flopping all over the place trying to cross the finish line no matter what.  I don’t think that I had anywhere near the fortitude that those people had but I could appreciate their pain and effort as well as the will to get over that or under that finish line no matter what.  The pain did not go away after I crossed the finish line and I had a banana, some water and sat down.  After a short rest, I made my way back to my car, taking a few more rest stops along the way to massage my calves. 

In retrospect, I am able to better understand and appreciate the training that I missed and still need if I want to compete at these distances.  My initial goal was to finish.  I finished in 2h45m and was proud of that accomplishment.  It has not disheartened me in any way; in fact, quite the opposite.  I respect the distance and have committed to renewing the training that is necessary to make this a less painful race next year.  I did have vision of going to the Ironman and really still do; however, I know that this is just a much longer journey than originally thought but not impossible.  When I was in the US Army, I had to run 5 miles and thought that was just not for me.  Now I have completed a 13 mile race and still think this is not for me, but I will keep training and hopefully complete a half Ironman as the next thing that is not for me and look forward to see what’s next.