{"id":1312,"date":"2014-10-14T05:58:02","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T05:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sch1auh0s7.site.nfoservers.com\/wp_lew1slau\/?p=1312"},"modified":"2022-03-12T07:28:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-12T07:28:45","slug":"my-first-half-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/2014\/10\/14\/my-first-half-marathon\/","title":{"rendered":"My First Half Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The air is cool, and the sky is gray. The sun is yet  to be seen, but the energy level around me feels like 10,000 suns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

7:15am and Seaport Village in Long Beach is packed with thousands of racers around me – I wonder how many of them are like me, running their first half marathon in a few minutes…? I knew a smile was forming on my face, and tried to wipe it off while slow down my breathing and heart beat,  but the excitement is just overwhelming…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve always loved running. From running to the bus stop every morning in primary school, to running both track and cross-country in high school – the sense of serenity with wind on my face, scenery passing me by, and the satisfaction of finishing a distance (any <\/em><\/strong>distance) always gave me an amazing ‘high’. But improper care over the years (stretching, warm-ups, getting good running shoes – all those things  that I DIDN’T do) led to my orthopedist telling me in 2008 that I should stop running for good – some sort of patella degeneration. I tried to enjoy swimming and biking, but back in my mind I have always wanted to run again, someday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Christmas last year, my wife Julia bought me a book on *proper* training for a running competition. I started to do more squats, stretched, and warmed up properly before every run. My knees weren’t hurting as bad as before \ud83d\ude42 Back in April, a few friends asked me if I was interested in signing up for the Long Beach Half Marathon… So the official training began in May, and here we are – five months later at the starting line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After the National Anthem, we had our sixty-second countdown. From all my training the past few months, I knew I can do a 9 min 20 sec \/mile pace for a 13.1 mile run (2 hour 3 min time) , but also wanted to see if I can push myself a bit further – a friend told me to aim for 8m50s\/mile pace, but being crazy that I am, I secretly wanted to see if a completion time of 1 hour 50 minutes was possible. So I knew I should be around ‘wave #1’ at the start – for those trying to finish between 1 hour 16 minutes – 2 hours 09 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My plan before the race was simple: run miles 1-8 at  ~9min00s\/mi pace,  miles 8-11 at 8m30s\/mi pace, and finish the last 2.1 miles with whatever turbo-energy that I could summon…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The horn goes off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I noticed that I have chills down my spine, and goosebumps on my arms for almost a minute. That’s how exciting the start line felt. Immediately following this initial rush, right away I noticed a crucial mistake – though I was at the right general vicinity of ‘wave #1’, I planted myself around the sub-group that of racers trying to finish at 1 hour 35 minutes – on my right was the pace racer with a balloon that reads 1:35 tied to his pants. Too late to just stand still, so I moved along the group. Even though I tried my best to pace myself purposely SLOWER than the rest of this sub-group, it proves to be impossible with the energy around me – even at my forced slow-down rate, I ended running miles 1 and 2 at around 8m30s\/mi pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miles 3-9 ended up around a 8m40s\/mi pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At mile 10 I noticed my breathing was no longer controlled – I wasn’t able to summon the energy that I needed to speed up<\/em><\/strong> to a pace under 8m30s. Miles 10-12.5 was around an average speed of 9m20s\/mi pace. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With about .5 miles to go, I finally summoned enough adrenalin and excitement to push myself to a 7m28s\/mi pace, finishing the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My final time of 1 hour 56 minutes, 39 seconds turns out to be about an average of 8m54s\/mi pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Five personal records were broken:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10k                             53:06
15k                          1:20:50
10mi                        1:26:58
20k                          1:49:49
Half Marathon         1:56:39<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I get to do the same race again, I think I should stick around the back <\/em>of wave #1, perhaps around the pace racer for 2-hour finish. Nonetheless I am very proud of being able to finish my first-ever half marathon at my time. Next is a few days of rest, before I decide what my next race will be (and start training again)!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The air is cool, and the sky is gray. The sun is yet  to be seen, but the energy level around me feels like 10,000 suns.  7:15am and Seaport Village in Long Beach is packed with thousands of racers around me – I wonder how many of them are like me, running their first half…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-119.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1318,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312\/revisions\/1318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewislau.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}