Resolution 1 - Run Half Marathon - Complete!!!

Fargo Marathon weekend is over. As I stated on Facebook minutes after finishing the race, "I rocked the half, but it also rocked me."

I have no idea where to begin so let's start at the beginning of the weekend when I arrived in Fargo and checked in at Motel 6 around 3pm. I felt pretty good and was incredibly stoked for the weekend. About 4:30 I made my way to the Fargodome, which was essentially marathon HQ for the weekend where the start and finish line was, and a bunch of other events that weekend. They had an all day health and fitness expo that day filled exhibitors from other races and health supply vendors and a huge makeshift Scheels store on the show floor mostly comprising the expo. Picked up a lot of info on upcoming races in the area and I ended up buying my first ever Under Armor running shirt from the Scheels store. I actually ended up with two running shirts that weekend since I got a complementary Fargo Half Marathon themed running shirt from my swag bag at the packet pick up.

I perused the expo for about an hour, and then went up for a pasta luncheon they were having for runners to load up on carbs. I sat down at a table with two other veteran runner couples who were very nice and great to talk too. I feel like crap for forgetting their names, but they were both well experienced runners, with one couple from Hudson, Wisconsin and the other from Austin, Texas I believe. They all ran in quite a few marathons before and they had a bunch of great stories about their past runs and they did not seem to mind me picking their brains about a few other races I was curious about. I was surprised they seemed genuinely excited for me when I told them this was my first half marathon and I was shooting for a two hour goal compared to my PR of the few practice half runs I did before of 2 hours 18 minutes.

Also at the luncheon was Ivan Bistro, a former armed forces member who was injured in the line of duty and became permanently blind, but found solace in running. He was quite the inspirational speaker and I thoroughly enjoyed his speech. After that was over, it was time for the only run of Friday, a 5K where part of the proceeds went to get 1,000 pairs of running shoes for kids in the community. They were heavily promoting this race and were hoping to get 10,000 runners to make it the country's biggest 5K, but I believe they stopped short of 9,000. I knew of a few friends running this race so I stood by one of the last turns along with my friend Chris who was rooting on his wife, Lyzz in the race. We watched her finish, and we celebrated for a little while before going our separate ways for the night.

After getting stuck in horrific Fargodome traffic for a good hour to an hour and a half, I finally returned to my hotel and watched a little tv before lying down for some zzzs around 11pm. Unfortunately I simply could not fall asleep, and tossed and turned all night. I was just too psyched up for the race I trained nearly a half a year for. I know I did not sleep a minute because I kept checking my phone every half hour to an hour thinking about how much more time I would be able to sleep if I passed out at that very moment. That moment did not happen, and I finally got out of my vintage rock of a Motel 6 bed around 5am.

Now I was both excited and petrified of going into the fast approaching race with no sleep. I made it to the Fargodome around 6am and stretched and chilled out in the arena seating until it was time to line up for the half marathon race about an hour later. One other fun hurdle that morning and for about the first hour of the race was that it was raining. It was only a light rain, and at least there was not any wind that day and temps remained in the 60s throughout the race so the weather could have been a lot worse. They had us line up by our project finishing times, and even though I was shooting for two hours, I lined up with those shooting for two hours and ten minutes thinking I wanted to avoid my past two race mistakes and not start out guns blazing to avoid flaming out a couple miles in. Nice and steady is exactly what I did for the first two to three miles, I ran what seemed a slower starting paced than what I was accustomed to of around 10 minutes a mile. I was passing a lot of people though at the back of the pack so that kept me in high spirits.

The entire race day vibe was amazing, and so was the sense of community. There were spectators lined up on almost all the city blocks the race passed through, with many having creative signs and kids crying out for high fives! It was also cool to see bands set up at every mile. I am glad I still brought my MP3 player though with my custom playlist of tunes I had set up for the race to keep my motivated. I also loved there were plenty of water and Powerade stations every mile or two set up throughout the race. I remember two occasions where I doused myself with a cup of water to wash away the increasing sweat streaming down me as the rain stopped and the day got more humid.

I had some unexpected motivation around mile four of the race. Think of probably the five worst things that can happen to a runner, it happened to me at mile four....and again around mile seven. Now I did not collapse or got hurt, but it was definitely one of the next worst things. I am refusing to say what happened, but find me on a night of drinking and I may indulge you with the details. That said, I really wanted to finish the race and quickly forgot about getting no sleep and stepped up my pace from around 10 minutes a mile to 9 minutes a mile.

I prayed the night before to run my best and keep up a consistent pace, and if that was what needed to happen it worked. Somehow, someway I kept that pace up and after checking my mile splits on RunKeeper I was amazed I kept all my miles under the ten minute mark. When it came to the final mile, I mumbled a few words of encouragement to myself and hauled ass to finish strong. I really wanted to finish in under two hours, but I just missed it with a final time of 2:02:48. I am still super proud of my effort though and that I did way better than my practice run attempts.

That race day vibe gave me the boost I needed to keep up that pace and not slow down. I just kept telling myself to keep passing runners to maintain pace, and that is what I did. It seemed like a countless field of runners with no end in sight. Remember the classic arcade racing games, Hang-On or Pole Position? That is kind of what running a marathon is like, not really but there are some parallels by passing countless racers and never seeing what position you are in until you find out after the race. I found out my aforementioned official time online last night, my official average pace was 9 minutes, 23 seconds a mile, and I have an official placing in the half marathon of 2073rd of 5558 runners. Just squeezed into the top half.

I felt great about my run and took in some post race snacks that were available at the Fargodome to refuel. Later in the afternoon I met up with Chris and Lyzz to end my 105 day pizza exodus at Rhombus Pizza in Fargo. All three of us devoured their award winning T-Rex pizza; it never tasted better! But after the race, and that mighty fine pizza all that lack of sleep was setting in and I was getting very tired, and to top it off my left foot was pretty damn sore. I was originally planning to hit up this club in Fargo that was having an official post marathon party with several bands playing, but no sleep and a super sore foot resulted in me not wanting to rock out. Instead, I had an interesting hour long drive back to Grand Forks.

It was about 6pm when I got back last night, and I still wanted to do a little celebrating, so I met up with a couple of friends at this bar literally across the street from me. I will give a shout out to Denny's (the local bar, not the restaurant) because they somehow find a way to make a drink wicked strong, but still quite tasty. I got there at 8pm and was only there for a couple hours, but their three Long Islands I had their completely annihilated me and I succeeded in passing out happy, completely oblivious of my very aching left foot. It feels a bit better today, but still a little sensitive.

So that was my Fargo Marathon weekend. It was the right combination of awesome and horrible, and I will never forget a minute of it. I will keep running and hopefully have at least future blogs here on other races I compete in throughout the year. Thank you to everyone who helped support me and encouraged me in running this past year, every little word of encouragement helped me keep pushing for new goals and distances. I do not want to get too ambitious, but who knows, maybe next year at Fargo will mark the time I run my first ever full marathon.