3M Half Marathon

After "tweaking" my right knee during Friday's five mile run (I believe it was some ITB irritation, which I've had before), I was apprehensive about running this morning's 3M Half Marathon. Part (a large part I may add) of running a marathon is completing the training without suffering an injury that either hampers training or, in the worst case, prevents the runner from running the race at all.

On an absolutely perfect (44 degrees, winds two mph or less) morning, I crossed the starting line for the 3M hoping that my knee would not cause problems. During the first two miles or so, I could feel some minor "something" going on there, but it certainly wasn't enough to cause me to stop running. Soon after that, I didn't notice it anymore.

With knee problems out of my thoughts, I concentrated on the real reason for being among the 5300+ participants - the run itself. As my training schedule called for an 11 mile run today, I figured I would run the 13.1 mile half marathon at a moderate pace, not pushing too hard, with the goal to finish without collapsing when crossing the finish line.

Sometimes things don't go as planned. While I did run the first half of the race at my target moderate pace, I found myself feeling great running in the great conditions and decided to see how well I could do in the second half. With each passing mile, I continued to feel strong, so I kept up something more than a moderate pace. I ended up finishing the race in 2:04:56.

Now that kind of time doesn't win one any awards in these types of races (the winner finished in 1:03:12), but for me ... let's just say I was happy with that result. Even more satisfying was that while I was in 2607th place at the halfway point, I finished in 2318th place - passing nearly 300 runners in the second half of the race. It was a good day all around.