One of those lovely, bubbly personalities that seem to exist in every office looks across the room at me and says -- The great Scottish run is on Sunday, are you gonna run?
Looking back now in retrospect a smarter person would have simply said 'no'. Well that wasn't what I said!
Yours truly was intrigued. Having a type A personality has it's drawbacks one of which is an inability to understand limitations(at least that's what I tell myself).
Seeing I was interested my friendly colleague threw the final piece of bait. She said: so i guess you'll be running the 10k since you've been out of training? Oh shit! wrong thing to say.
Here I was less than 48 hours away from race day, no training, no number and trying to decide if it was worth it running a 10K when there was a Half Marathon waiting to be conquered.
So off to the internet I went and 'googlepedia' the haven of all whom seek knowledge. I googled everything I could about running a half marathon without training for 30 minutes and unexpectedly had very few hits. The advise I managed to glean was if you can get away without doing it, do. Don't risk injury on such a foolhardy venture.
Anyway, I sent an email to my wife before I left the office saying : Honey what do you think of me running a 10k or Half Marathon on Sunday" and I got a reply almost instantly telling me that I was nuts but if I insisted I'd better do the 10K since I wasn't in a position to run a Half.
So putting all the advise into consideration I made my decision, and ignored the advise :).
I'd be damned if I listened to all the naysayers. I was gonna do this and finish, even if I had to cross the finishing line on my knees.
Now for a bit of history. I wasn't exactly a novice runner. I had been running for over a year at that point and had both a 10k and Marathon under my belt. Unfortunately I had not run anything approaching 5 Miles in over 4 months. I was unfit (not ridiculously so) you get the picture.
Not to go into too much detail, there's really nothing you can do with a race less than 48 hours away apart from carb up. I did consuming as much rice, pasta and potatoes as I could. Went to the hotel in town and signed up for the half, was a little shocked to see a queue, I guess the Scots are like Nigerians, always waiting till the last minute.
Race day came bright and early. I woke up (reluctantly), knowing what lay ahead for me. I took a cab to town got to the changing area dropped my stuff off and hooked up with a friend whom I discovered at the last minute was also taking part. And we were off...
The first couple of miles my friend stuck to me, unfortunately when we got to the 6 mile marker and he that noticed I had began to struggle, he was off with a wave and see you at the finish line. I won't bore you with details of how painful it was or how much I struggled but suffice to say, if after me recounting my experience you still choose to run a half marathon without any training get ready to SUFFER.
I crossed the finishing line in a hybrid of a jog/walk/limp. And yes my friend was at the finishing line waiting for me he had been there for almost 40 minutes :). As I type this I'm still in pain.
Verdict: Do not try this at home. Disclaimer: If you still choose to try this ensure that you are reasonably fit and have a history of running long distances.
