Wait, a what? An urbanathlon? What is that? – I get those questions a lot when I tell people I am training for a race come October. I was inspired to enter by my friend Dan Corbera who participates in marathons, triathlons and more. He has a competitive spirit that is inspirational – it certainly has to be considering what he got me into.

Dan got me started in racing back around New Year’s Day 2009 that when he asked if I wanted to run in the Cape Cod half-marathon with him. Well I hadn’t run in two years and the race was six weeks away… but I figured worse comes to worse I don’t run. The old competitive side of me didn’t want to participate if I couldn’t finish without walking or stopping.

And so training began. My first time out things were bad. It was January and the frigid New England air seared my nose and mouth as I breathed in and out. “Hills” that seemed to be no more than sloping ground turned my quads to mush and the real hills would make my glutes spasm. I only made it a mile and half that day. Things were not looking good for six weeks out.

But I persevered and gradually my runs got longer and longer. My quads got strong and I stopped having glute spasms. I was running in shorts and a sweatshirt in twenty degree weather with an icy wind and there was nothing to it. The week before the race I finished my first ten miler in 100 minutes and it was awesome.

Race day is here and I’m standing by myself at the ten minute mile section of the starting line. Dan is way up at the front by the seven minute milers. All around me runners are packed tight and nervously champing at the bit to get started. They offer each other reassuring words and I am beginning to wonder if I should have picked a friend that runs my pace. It seems like I’m the only solitary runner here. Am I dressed appropriately? I’m wearing my shorts, sweatshirt and old running shoes with holes in them. Everyone else has hats, gloves, long pants, digital watches and “goo.” There isn’t much time to dwell on it though since the starting gun fires and people make mooing noises as we herd across the start line.

Through all the hours of training by myself there is one thing I didn’t expect out of the race. It was fun. I mean really fun. It was exciting to have so many people running with you, to have the crowds cheering you on and to know that you are accomplishing a goal you had trained for. In my mind the race had started out as an accomplishment, a box to tick, I will have completed a half-marathon. The reality was that the fun and excitement pushed me to an all time best run. I felt great and it showed when I finished in a hair over two hours with energy to burn. A nine and a half minute mile over thirteen miles in six weeks. Now that is something I was proud of.

Oh right… you are still wondering what an Urbanathlon is right?

So needless to say I have actually started training much further in advance and I expect to kick some butt!

Tags: urbanathlon

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 10:57 am and is filed under Fun Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.