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My time on my first 1\/2 marathon was 2:39 minutes which is basically a horrible time. The reason that my time was so bad was because I walked somewhere around 3 kilometers of the race. It was my goal to run the entire race, and I failed in that goal. I wanted to finish and not walk.<\/p>\n
The reason is that I developed cramps and I started walking. Worse yet, after about 2 kilometers, both my legs cramped incredibly and I fell to the ground in pain. I was so mad at myself. People were yelling at me to get up and keep on stretching so I did. I started walking and finally I decided to finish the race running no matter what. I stopped again and started stretching like a mad man until I felt that I stretched out all the cramps. I finished the last 4 kilometers running and those are the photos taken by the photographers.<\/p>\n
I had no idea, but I need to rehydrate. Cramps are a function of fatigue and hydration. I sweat a lot when I run. In fact, it is one of the reasons that I enjoy running but if I want to run for long distances, I have to hydrate during the run or I will cramp. My wife also ran and she did not hydrate much and she did not cramp. The difference is she barely perspires.<\/p>\n
I decided to run a test and yesterday (4 days after the 1\/2 marathon), I weighed myself before I ran my normal 7500 meter run. I weighed 69.1 kg which is 152 pounds. Aftewards, slightly less than an hour later, I weighed 67.4 kg or 148 pounds. So in less than an hour, I lost 4 pounds and to be honest, I was still sweating madly when I weighed myself.<\/p>\n
The most important lesson that I have learned is that I have to learn to hydrate. I mean this literally because it is a skill to drink liquids while running.<\/p>\n
I did experience pain after I ran to my great disappointment. It was a very strange pain. It only happened when I change positions such as standing up. And then it would slowly go away after about 5 minutes. After two days it was all gone but I don’t think it is normal and right now I am betting that the pain is a function of the cramping. Normally, I don’t experience any pain what so ever when I run even long distances.<\/p>\n
I think that I over trained because I was nervous about the unknown. Starting in April (over three months before the big event), I ran 7500 kms every day religiously. I missed very few days. I would estimate that I was running around 140 miles per month before the marathon. I don’t need to train that hard, and regardless of my horrible time, I am confident in saying that I am in the best shape of my life and that is a good thing.<\/p>\n
One thing that I proud of is that I finished. I was on the ground writing in pain, and somehow I finished. Better yet, I finished running and passing people. In fact, when I was done, I wasn’t even tired. There were many people huffing and puffing. That wasn’t me.<\/p>\n
I got really lucky for my first 1\/2 marathon because Rio is one of the most beautiful and popular places for a marathon. There were over 20,000 that particated and over 6000 in the 1\/2 marathon. Just getting ready to begin, there is a certain electricity in the air, much like before the start of a big sports event. Then when you are off, it is really exciting. All of these people running together trying to accomplish the same goal.<\/p>\n
The sites along the way are spectacular and it was fun to listen to the people from other cities and countries marvel over the city where I live.<\/p>\n
I have decided that I am definitely going to run another one. Myrtle Beach has a marathon in February 2012. It should be a lot colder so I should sweat a lot less. I don’t think that I need to train as hard although I need to work on hydration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Water My time on my first 1\/2 marathon was 2:39 minutes which is basically a horrible time. The reason that my time was so bad was because I walked somewhere around 3 kilometers of the race. It was my goal to run the entire race, and I failed in that goal. I wanted to finish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10,13,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1627"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4942,"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions\/4942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chengrob.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}