We are now two weeks out from our Half Marathon and I think I have had ample time to reflex on all the post race happenings. So after I crossed the finish line I run into my dad who was the camera man on the spot to get my across the line celebration. I tried to stand near the water table but my legs were not cooperating so instead I stagered arround the water table where I must have had me about 17 waters.
By that time my brother and mom and come to join me. A few hugs, some smiling, some kodax moments and more water I was starting to feel my legs sturdy up. We chated about our times and I find out my brother nearly broke two hours, just amazing for someone who didn’t even know they would be running 13.1 miles that day. He did great and I was only 14 minutes behind him. My brother is training very hard and I knew I would slower but I was only 14 minutes behind him, that felt great.
I was able to control my drunk-like stagger but my knees were hurting… BAD. However, I hurt much less than my first half marathon which was a very welcome surprise. My parents headed off to their to the house and Zeb and I enjoyed being on the Rose Bowl playing field for a few minutes. We got to watch a lot more finishers, I looked up and realized if I ran at the same time as my last marathon I would still be running at 2:42. It felt great to finish early.
We decided we wanted to get breakfast at a local breakfast joint to finish off our Pasadena experience. I was able to operate my stickshift transmission and we drove down Colorado Street looking for a good local place. After several miles we weren’t having very much luck and turn toward the 210 freeway to head to our local joint Bravo Burger, then we see Tommy’s.
I had seen Tommy’s resturantes so I knew it wasn’t a local small business but I had never eaten there. Well if you every want to cancel out the calories burned from a half marathon go to Tommy’s. Chilli Cheese everything. It probably wasn’t the best choice but I needed to get something so we scarfed down the chili cheese burgers and headed home.
For the rest of the day getting up and sitting down was rather difficult and we still had to do SuperBowl in a few hours. I was attending a gathering across town and was concerned that would involve a lot of getting up and sitting down. As it turns out I stood most of the game and managed to drink tons of water. I tried to eat a lot of fruits because I heard they may stop muscle cramps. Fortunently, I didn’t get any cramps but my knees hurt.
Over the next three days, my legs were sore but I was still able to get around. After about a week my knee pain was fading to almost nothing. As for my race experience I thought it would be over once the pain gone but I was wrong.
I had a difficult time getting back to training. Although my body didn’t hurt any more I just didn’t feel like training. So I turned to google and started to type in “post race…” and the very first thing that shows up is “post race blues.” I guess what I was feeling was pretty normal. So it has been 2 weeks and I have been pretty relaxed on my training and I was feeling guilty but thats normal apparently.
Now that I know this feeling is normal, I feel better and today is the start of my continued training.