OUC 1/2 Marathon BONK

December 5, 2009 Tyler and I ran the OUC 1/2 Marathon in downtown Orlando.

Let me start with Tyler...
I met Tyler in the Tri-Cities Airport the Sunday following the 2009 Blue Ridge Relay. Tyler and his teammate John were heading back home to Orlando after running on an Ultra Relay Team (meaning they run with 6 teammates what everyone else runs with 12 = crazy runners!). Tyler noticed my race shirt (thank God for not doing laundry!) and struck up a conversation.

He is the kind of person you want to be friends with, instantly. I don't know how else to explain it. Our flight was delayed so we were able to chat it up. As we were getting on the plane, I mentioned that we had an open spot on our Florida Ragnar Relay team coming up in a couple months. Both he and John said they'd be happy to fill it and gave me their cards.

I wasn't letting this one get away...

Tyler did end up committing to fill in our 12th spot, and John found another team. Through emails, Tyler and I began our friendship, by the time the Relay rolled around I felt like I'd known him for years. He is one of the most positive, friendly, and genuine people I've ever met. Did I mention he is an incredible runner!? His average pace for the Relay was around a 7:15 min/mile.

So, when I realized that the OUC 1/2 Marathon wasn't "that far off" from my scheduled running time that day (actually I should have ran about 9 miles on Dec 5th, not 13.1), and knowing Tyler would be up for it... why not?

I traveled down by Greyhound Bus on Friday Dec 4th and stayed with Tyler so we could go to the race together the next morning. Friday night Tyler and I talked about how he wanted to help me finish in my BQ pace (which is 8:24 min/mile = race time of 1:50 for a 1/2 marathon). This made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Knowing he wanted to run at least a minute per mile slower that what he could run, just to encourage me, was almost too much for me to process. All of my issues bubbled up, the "I'm not worth it" feelings, "I will never be able to give back to you in this way" feelings, "What if you see me fail" feelings... yuck!

After sharing some of this with Tyler, I told him that he was an adult and I would let him make his decision. His decision was of course to start and finish right by my side.

The bubbling of personal issues led me to not fall asleep till around 2am, we had to wake up by 5am. Just to give you a contextual image, this race fell at the end of my first two weeks of training (a training that goes 2 hard weeks then 1 easier week). We ran the 32 hour Ragnar Relay, which I had a 21 mile piece of, 2 weeks before, and I PR'd at the Tom Walker 1/2 Marathon a week before that (with a 1:57 time).

If you are interested in the breakdown of my OUC BONK see the Running Log link on the right. But, basically I started out strong time wise, but never felt strong. I unfortunately struggled from the beginning. Around mile 7 I knew I was crashing, mile 9 was my official BONK, the last 4 were just rough.

I was embarrassed that Tyler saw me in that state, but as he said "that's what friends are for". We came in at 1:59:50, right at a 9 minute mile.

I learned so many things that weekend. Top two, I'm not as mentally tough as I think I am (working on it though!), and I have a new "treasured friend" (as Tyler put it).

Right now I've had three more runs following the race under my belt, and I'm slowly getting my confidence back. This is a tougher road than I thought it would be, but I'm looking forward to it, knowing I'm not all alone.