I believe how we prepare for something will determine how we will perform at it.

A few years ago I decided I wanted to run a Half Marathon.  Since I had only been running 3 to 5 miles at a time the previous couple of months I knew I needed to train for it.  To give me the time I thought I needed I chose a race that was about 3 and a half months out.  I figured this would give me plenty of time to prepare.

Preparation

As I trained for the race I tried a lot of different things to help me prepare.  I mainly focused on the foods I ate, stretching, and my workout routines.

Food

While training for the Half Marathon I was also making an effort to lose a decent amount of weight.  This caused me to focus on the foods and drinks I was putting in my body.  I was trying to cut back on my calories so I would drop weight but had to make sure I was taking in enough to have the energy to workout at the level I needed to each day.  It took a lot of effort along with some trial and error but I was eventually able to figure out what worked best for me and had a consistent diet well before I had to run the Half Marathon.

Stretching

Over the years I have done a lot of different types of workouts.  Throughout most of them I have had to include a certain amount of stretching during the warmup, cool down, or both.  In the past when I ran I would usually just do a few stretches to loosen up my legs before running and walked for my cool down.  As I started to run more often and add more miles than I was used to I started to feel more aches and pains.  To help overcome this I started to stretch during my cool downs and also tried some additional type of stretches.  By the time I was ready for the Half Marathon I felt I had a solid set of stretches that took me around 5 minutes.  I did them before and after each run.

Workout Routine

With my busy schedule the best time I had to run was usually late at night so I did a lot of my training on a treadmill. Running on a treadmill has never been very easy for me or something I have enjoyed.  I prefer to be out in the open, enjoying the scenery, and being able to lose myself in my thoughts as I run.  Not the type of things you can do when on a treadmill.  One of the challenges I have is that my attention span is not the greatest.  That being the case when I run on a treadmill I tend to get board and lose interest.  I could increase the speeds to where I am pushing myself but that would make it extremely hard to maintain for the distance I needed to run.

To overcome my attention span and to push myself at a pace that was manageable I chose to start at a good warmup pace and to increase my speeds at intervals of a quarter or half mile depending on the distance I was going and the speed I was running.  This enabled me to establish a routine that helped me run effectively on the treadmill for a longer period increasing both the distance I ran and the time I did it in.  Once I got this routine down I was able to start out at a decent pace and continue to run faster all the way up until I was done.  Almost always running my fastest towards the end of my runs.

Pre Race

When it finally came time to run the Half Marathon I was very excited.  A week before I felt completely ready and couldn’t wait.  Throughout the week I got more and more anxious and the night before I could hardly sleep.  I got to bed late and I tossed and turned throughout the night.  I must have woke up at least 4 or 5 times to go to the bathroom or check the time to make sure I didn’t over sleep.  I ended up only getting around 5 hours sleep that night.  When my alarm went off and I finally got up in the morning I had so many different thoughts running through my mind and I was very nervous for what the day would bring.

The first thing I did that morning was eat breakfast.  I had brought food and drinks with me so that I could have the same things I had become used to over the previous few months.  After eating I got dressed and started stretching.  It was a little cold that morning and I wanted to try to stay warm for a little longer so I chose to stretch before leaving for the room.  About half way into my stretching I started to feel more calm and less anxious.  By the time I finished and was ready to leave for the race I felt much better.  I was still a little nervous but it was not overwhelming.  I believe by going through the same routine I had for months now added a little bit of normalcy to my day and really helped to settle my nerves.

Race

When I walked over to line up to start the race I saw several different flags marking the race times.  My goal was to run the race in between 2 hours and 2 hours and 10 minutes so I chose to line up next to the flag marked 2 hours.  Initially there were not a lot of people around the flags.  As the start time got closer more racers lined up and eventually everyone was crammed in with little to no room to move.

There were so many people that we were not able to run the 100 or so yards between our flag and the official starting line.  We had to walk and slowly increase our pace as the crowd separated.  By the time we got to the official starting line we were able to jog but there was still not much open room.  For the first couple of miles most people stayed fairly bunched together.  With each mile there was more room to manuever and we all started to separate more.  This allowed us to run at our own pace and you started seeing racers regularly pass each other.

Every other mile of the race there was a timer posted to let us know our time.  When I got to the 3 mile mark I looked over and noticed it had taken me around 31 minutes.  I had run it at just over a 10 minute mile pace.  This was a pretty slow for me.  I knew it was partially due to the crowds at the beginning of the race.  However, I also knew I needed to pick up my pace if I wanted to finish in my goal time.

I slowly increased my pace over the next few miles and I was able to get to the half way mark at around the 58 minute mark.  This made me happy because I was now running at a pace closer to what I had trained at and had a chance of finishing near the 2 hour mark if I could keep my pace up.

For the next few miles I felt like I was able to maintain my pace and at times even increase it.  Around the 10 mile mark I started to feel like I was slowing down.  However, I kept pushing myself to do my best.  I knew there were only 3 miles left and I was determined to finish strong.

Throughout the run we would randomly see people on the side of the road cheering us on.  Some of them would have signs, a few would give us high 5’s, and many would call out words of encouragement.  This helped to motivate us to keep going and at times pushed us to run even faster.

As we got closer to the end of the race the amount of people cheering us on increased and for the last few hundred yards it was like a wall of spectators.  This really made for a great finish.  As I saw the people and heard them cheering I wanted to really push myself and started running harder.

I was not sure what my time was at that point but was determined to give everything I had left in me until I crossed the finish line.  When I rounded the last corner I was running as fast as I felt I could at the time and was very excited to know I was seconds away from finishing my first half marathon.

Positioned next to the finish line was the final clock that showed the current race time.  I looked over at it as I approached and noticed it read just over 1 hour and 56 minutes.  Considering the time I knew I had maintained my speed for the second half and possibly even increased it.

As I crossed the finish line I was overwelmed with a feeling of accomplishment.  I had met all the goals I had set for myself.  I completed my first half marathon, ran the whole way, and had even exceeded my time goal by finishing it in under 2 hours.

Learnings

After finishing my first half marathon I felt like I learned a tremendous amount.  The most important thing is that it solidified for me the fact that how you prepare is how you will perform.

Since then I have run many more races over the years at varying distances (5K’s, 10K’s, half ,marathons, and even a marathon).  The amount of time, effort, and how I have prepared for each event is never quite the same. That being the case neither have been my results.  Regardless of the differences in distances the results have consistently been a direct reflection of how I prepared prior to and leading up to the race.

“In order to get the results we hope to we should always prepare how we plan to perform.”