{"id":1533,"date":"2010-09-26T22:30:20","date_gmt":"2010-09-27T03:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/punyamishra.com\/?p=1533"},"modified":"2010-09-27T08:37:08","modified_gmt":"2010-09-27T13:37:08","slug":"how-to-complete-a-half-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/2010\/09\/26\/how-to-complete-a-half-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"How to complete a half-marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

I completed the Capital City River Run<\/a> Half Marathon today. This race has become an annual event for me, this being my 7th outing so far (the first three years being a 10 mile run before it shifted into a half-maraton). [See links here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>]. I completed the race in 2 hours and 11 minutes (a perfect 10:00 minute per mile pace). This was a better pace than what I had achieved in the past three years, so that, I guess is an achievement.<\/p>\n

Though much is said about the “loneliness of a long distance runner” \u00a0(based on Alan Silitoe’s story with the same title), I know for a fact that I could not have completed this race if it weren’t for a large number of people, most of them strangers, who encouraged me and pushed me to try harder. Foremost among them, in today’s race, were Pacers Lisa and Chris<\/a> who kept a steady 10 minute-mile pace, allowing me to stay with them. And they did this while dressed, not in running gear, but rather in somewhat elaborate costumes, and carrying a flag, so that they could be easily visible to all of us.<\/p>\n

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Early in the race I got in front of the Lisa and Chris and just let them chase me to the finish line. At the end of the race I got a chance to thank Chris and have my picture taken with him. Here it is.<\/p>\n

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Who knew that the best way to run a race was to have a pirate chase you till the finish line!<\/p>\n

I am hurting a lot right now (the perils of not having trained properly and enough) but I am thrilled at my new timing. This isn’t my best pace but it is maybe the most satisfying. I had run a half marathon in approximately 2 hours and 5 minutes, but that was 6 years or so ago, when I was younger and much better trained. Since then I have been trying to run a 10 or less pace – and today was the day!! The goal next year is to shave 15 seconds of my time so that I can end up in the 9 min + category. But again that is a year away… The goal right now is to hobble over to the medicine cabinet and get myself some ibuprofen!<\/p>\n

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I completed the Capital City River Run Half Marathon today. This race has become an annual event for me, this being my 7th outing so far (the first three years being a 10 mile run before it shifted into a half-maraton). [See links here, here and here]. I completed the race in 2 hours and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15,49],"tags":[239,241,590,592,591],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1533"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1536,"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions\/1536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/punyamishra.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}