I Am Faster Than P. Diddy
Yesterday, after 5 months and about 543 miles of training, I ran my first full marathon in 3 hours 40 minutes and 1 second.
Not an especially amazing time, but not too bad either.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, this race was a New Year’s resolution of sorts, celebrating the 5th anniversary of becoming a runner in the first place (which was my resolution back in 2002). Marathons are kind of a strange beast: thousands of people run them, yet they are pretty subcultural. Mainstream enough for episodes of sitcoms from The Critic to Seinfeld to be devoted to them, yet nothing that would ever get the media coverage of a team sport. The Geneva Marathon itself was a little different (smaller) than the half marathons I’ve run in, so the spectacle wasn’t there, but rest assured that 42.16 kilometers is the same thing as 26.2 miles. And it was nice to have several co-workers and Hashers out along the course for support.
Having now participated in both, I can say that a half-marathon is much saner than the whole thing. The race started out great and I managed to keep up with the 3.5 hour pacer for 33 km, but then my legs started to really bother me so I had to back it off a bit, with my mind losing the battle to my body. It was definitely the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done, but I made across the finish line and can now cross another thing off the “Life Goals” list. Now I just have to someday qualify for and run Boston...
And, as you can see from the title, I am indeed faster than P. Diddy (who “ran the city” of New York a couple years ago in just under 4 hours 15 minutes).
I’ll probably post some photos over the next week or so as they become available from friends and the race website.
Not an especially amazing time, but not too bad either.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, this race was a New Year’s resolution of sorts, celebrating the 5th anniversary of becoming a runner in the first place (which was my resolution back in 2002). Marathons are kind of a strange beast: thousands of people run them, yet they are pretty subcultural. Mainstream enough for episodes of sitcoms from The Critic to Seinfeld to be devoted to them, yet nothing that would ever get the media coverage of a team sport. The Geneva Marathon itself was a little different (smaller) than the half marathons I’ve run in, so the spectacle wasn’t there, but rest assured that 42.16 kilometers is the same thing as 26.2 miles. And it was nice to have several co-workers and Hashers out along the course for support.
Having now participated in both, I can say that a half-marathon is much saner than the whole thing. The race started out great and I managed to keep up with the 3.5 hour pacer for 33 km, but then my legs started to really bother me so I had to back it off a bit, with my mind losing the battle to my body. It was definitely the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done, but I made across the finish line and can now cross another thing off the “Life Goals” list. Now I just have to someday qualify for and run Boston...
And, as you can see from the title, I am indeed faster than P. Diddy (who “ran the city” of New York a couple years ago in just under 4 hours 15 minutes).
I’ll probably post some photos over the next week or so as they become available from friends and the race website.
Labels: running
posted by Aaron at 4:38 PM
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