I stood among people I had never met before. Many of them held bottles of water, quite a few of them had band-aids protecting their nipples, and many had their genitals lathered with some type of moisturizing cream. The music was pumping loud through large speakers, and the overall mood was upbeat and jovial. No, I wasn’t at a midnight rave in an abandoned industrial warehouse. I was at the start of the Cheshire Half Marathon.
Last year I stood in this exact same spot, completely clueless as to what the next two and a half hours held in store for me. It was my first ever half marathon, and I finished in a rather slow 2:27:18, a pace of 11:13 per mile. I didn’t know at the time it was going to be the beginning of a new obsession. Lining up at this year’s race was much different – I now had two more half-marathons and two full marathons under my belt. This is beginning to feel a bit old-hat.
It was an interesting drive to Cheshire, one much different than last year’s. Last year I spent the hour in the car listening to Rage Against the Machine, talking myself into believing that I could somehow run 13.1 miles. Now I’m a veteran and there are no such thoughts, and I save the Rage for the end of my running playlist – for when I really need motivation.
I got to the race early and parked in the same exact parking spot I had last year. Strolling over to the tents, I picked up two racing bibs – one for me and one for my daughter Samantha. Samantha was number 3233 and I was number 9. That’s right, just 9. Aren’t low numbers usually reserved for the elite runners or celebrities? I am certainly not “elite” by any stretch – everyone knows I’m just “ordinary.” As far as the celebrity-status, I had been trying to stay low-key and didn’t even have my press agent call in advance to let them know I was coming. But I guess they found out anyway and gave me number 9.
The shirt for the Cheshire Half was a complete win – even better than last year. Last year’s shirt was great, but there’s something about the color white that just seems a little uncreative. This year’s shirt was a very cool shade of blue, with tapered sides that make a chubby guy like me look a little less chubby.
Before the half, I watched my daughter Samantha run her very first race – one lap around the Cheshire High School track, or a quarter-mile. I was nervous for her. We had done a few training runs together. She generally goes out too fast and tires-out right around the quarter-mile mark. In addition, the quarter-mile “kids run” was billed as a race for kids 3-6, and with her sixth birthday next week, we thought she’d be amongst the older kids in the race. They have a half-mile race that was for the older kids. However, when we got there, the race organizers announced that kids could run both races if they wanted.
So, when my 5 year old Sam lined up, she was up against some big kids, some of them twice her age. She had been hell-bent on winning, and I thought she might actually have a shot if the age group was 3-6. But now all that was gone. As a parent, and not really knowing her competition, I tried my best to temper her expectations leading up to the race. I stressed the importance of trying her best and not quitting.
And to her credit, she did both. As expected, the older kids broke out fast and Sam was left in their dust. But she kept on fighting and never quit. I set myself up at the beginning of the final straightaway and when she ran by I screamed, “Go Sam!” She looked over at her dad and beamed a tremendous smile. Then she picked her pace up a notch and smoked a few kids on her way to the finish.
She finished 38th out of 102 and beat quite a few older boys, too. I was so proud. She really ran her tail off. I’m tearing-up just writing this.
When it was dad’s turn to run, Sam had a front row spot with her mom and gave me a big smile and a high-five as I ran past.
My racing plan was to run the first 10 miles at a 10:15-10:25/mile pace. At mile 10 there is a pretty steep hill. The plan was to crest that hill and then make the decision to maintain that pace, or if I had any reserve, to go-for-it.
Great plan.
I stayed true to it for about a quarter-mile. I was pacing along to my music and felt pretty good at around 9:50 per mile, so I kept going. I pretty much ran the first 11 miles at that pace, some miles a little slower and some a little quicker based on hills and water-stops. Around mile 7, I could feel the initial pangs that I feel when I know pain is on its way. I paid no mind and continued on, hoping I would finish the race before the pain settled in.
Of course, this is EXACTLY what I did wrong in this race last year. I pushed the pace too early and died in the later stages.
And sure enough, the real pain came around mile 11, right around the same time as it did last year. However, this time I was in a much better place to deal with it. I slowed my pace down, the last two miles registering closer to 11 minutes than to 10. I remembered the hills last year on the back-end of the course – trudging up them and being in so much pain that I couldn’t even enjoy a smooth glide going down the other side. This year was different, and I powered up the uphills and let gravity take over and do the work for me on the downhills.
I passed the place where last year I had stopped and walked… man, I had been so close. This year it seemed like such a short distance from there to the finish. I ran up the final hill towards the school and a guy in front of me gave up and started walking. I knew how he felt. For a moment I contemplated how great it would feel to walk instead of run, since by now my own legs were feeling quite weary. But I knew I could make it and kept on until the finish. I crossed the tape in 2:13:05, which beat my previous PR in the half by a little over 2 minutes.
After last year’s race, I couldn’t even make it to the water table, which was less than a hundred yards from the finish. Instead, I opted for a seat on the ground, leaning up against a fence. This year, not only did I make it to the water table, but I made it to the food spread in the back. Bananas, apples, pizza, artisan bread. A woman handed me a cup of chocolate milk… and it was AMAZING. I grabbed a cup of ice cream for the car on the way out. That was amazing too. I had missed out on all of this stuff last year because I was simply unable to walk that far. I could barely make it to my car! Now I was elbows deep in post-race snacks and loving every minute of it.
Unfortunately, despite all of the available kids entertainment, Samantha could not stick around for the end of the race to see her Dad cross the finish. Hey, she’s five (sorry... five and a half!) and she gets bored easily. But when I drove into the garage, the inside door opened and there she was. She took one look at my medal and said, “DADDY WON THE RACE!” When I got inside she recalled seeing me start towards the back (with the 10-minute mile crowd), and she asked right away, “But Dad, how did you pass all of those people in front of you?”
I told her again that this is a race that is really long and that it doesn’t matter who finishes first. If you do your best, don’t quit, and get yourself through the finish line, then you are a winner and you get a medal. No matter how many times I tell her, she still thinks I actually win every race. Though I am a competitive person and would love to crush the 1,000 or so people who finished in front of me, that doesn’t diminish my accomplishment any time I cross that finish line for a half, and especially when I set a new PR.
I have to say… the organizers of the Cheshire Half Marathon know how to plan a race. I don’t typically enjoy reading blogs that review races because let’s face it… kissing ass to race organizers is a backdoor way to free shirts, free race entries and other perks. I am not that guy. If a race sucks, I’m going to tell you it sucks. Lucky for Cheshire – this race doesn’t suck. And I’ll likely be back next year and the next. I can’t think of a better way to start the New England racing season with the St. Patrick’s Day Road Race in Holyoke, followed by the Cheshire Half Marathon.
That night I tucked Samantha in for bed. She asked me to pin her racing bib and the finisher ribbon to her bedroom curtain. So I did. I told her how proud I was of her once more and she smiled ear-to-ear.
“Do you think you might want to do another race one day?” I asked.
“I was going to ask you about that, Dad,” she started. “When can I do another one?”
“Very soon, Sam… Very soon.”
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