I’m Only Half Crazy

Ed Philipp, Rye YMCA Chief Operating Officer
You might have heard: I am running a half marathon on April 22^nd.  Up until six months ago, when I committed to running the race, I never would have thought I’d be running a half marathon.  Heck, I was still in denial until I started training 10 weeks ago.  Running just isn’t my thing.  It’s boring (especially on the treadmill) and it hurts.  I ran in the Rye Derby in 2007 and while that was only five miles, it might as well have been an ultra marathon.  I hadn’t run five miles at one time since junior high cross country and I don’t think that I’ve run further than 3.5 miles since that painful Derby day.  So why then am I jumping all the way up to 13.1 miles?  Easy, a friend double dog dared me.

OK, not really but close enough.  Last July I convinced one of my couch potato friends to participate in the Spartan Race with me later that summer.  A funny thing happened; he started training and fell in love with running.  So once he was done crawling through mud at the Spartan Race, he suggested that we run a half marathon.  How could I say no?  After all, I had talked him into the Spartan Race; it was the least I could do.  We rounded up a few more friends, including my wife, and now five of us will run the half marathon and another friend will run the 8K on the same day. 

The worst part of longer distance races is never the actual race; rather it’s the training and time commitment required before the race.  I have been following a 12-week program to get ready for race day and I am now convinced, after completing 10 weeks, that race day is going to be easy.  That’s only because of the time and effort that I have put in so far.  The plan calls for runs on three days a week and cross-training another two days.  In the beginning, even the short runs were painful.  But after the first few weeks, the three, four and five mile runs became “easy” and pain free.  I’ve increased my weekend runs by one mile each week starting with a three mile run in week one and reaching 12 miles by week 10.  I can’t believe that I now find myself saying things like “It’s an easy four- mile run today” or “this weekend is going to be easy; it’s only a five-mile run”.

I can honestly say this is not a challenge I would have taken on by myself.  Having my wife and friends train for the race at the same time has made all the difference.  It’s great having my wife support me and allowing me to spend close to two hours on a Saturday training.  In turn it feels good supporting her while she spends the same amount of time (maybe a little bit longer) training on Sunday.  It’s also a lot of fun to fire off a text message after completing a training run to my friends letting them know how I did.  Race weekend should be a bunch of laughs as well, starting with dinner the night before and continuing through the post race “party”.

So what’s next?  Well, now that running doesn’t hurt anymore, I think I am going to do a lot more of it.  I found a website where you can enter your miles and compete in challenges--just another way to motivate me and keep things interesting.  I just discovered a summer running series that consists of three, five, seven, nine, and 11-mile runs from June until mid-August that I think I am going to sign up for.  I still have two Spartan Races to compete in this summer, so I should be busy.
The same friend that caught the running bug last summer just told me today that next up is a full marathon to which I replied “I don’t think I will ever run a marathon because I’m not CRAZY, only half crazy…”

You can follow Ed on twitter @RyeYCOO