Never in a million years would I have dreamt of running in a half marathon.
Naturally I have never been a runner, but I've always been athletic. I grew up playing tennis and basketball and trained a lot through conditioning. But running 13.1 miles always seemed daunting to me, and to be honest, boring. What got me to sign up for my first half-marathon was my sister, the champion of running half marathons and full marathons left and right. She told me we should one run together, so we decided to sign up for the Rock 'n' Roll SF Half Marathon together in April.
Since we don't live in the same city, we had to train on our own, which is pretty tough. So we had to encourage each other to make sure we kept to our training, or at the very least, kept tabs on each other that we were at least running once in awhile.
When my sister arrived in San Francisco, we went to the Expo to check out their products and pick up our bibs. While we were getting some energy blocks for our race, we also found our names on their wall of all the women participants.
TRAINING
Leading up to the half marathon, I probably could've done a better job training for it. I told myself to stick to a 12-week training schedule, but with my trip to Asia and a busy work schedule, that didn't really happen. Throughout the weeks, I kept myself active with tennis, spin classes, working out at the gym, and going on runs when I could. I cramp up really easily during my runs and one of the biggest pieces of advice I got was to drink a lot of water days before you know you're going to go on a run and eat bananas. Also, make sure you invest in good running shoes! I splurged on Brooks running shoes with customized insoles because I wanted to be comfortable during my runs, especially since I have flat feet. It's worth the investment.
My longest runs during my training was 5 miles one weekend and 10 miles one week before my race. What I wish I would've done was run more frequently to build up to my long runs and run on more hills.
DAY BEFORE THE RACE
The day before the half marathon my knee was acting up. I felt some minor pains on the outer part of my knee during Saturday morning and it kept getting worse throughout the day. It freaked me out so much that I went to Walgreens to buy myself a knee brace and some IcyHot sleeves to ease the pain because I literally had no idea why my knee felt that way. I didn't fall or tweak my leg in any way that week. In fact, I rested all week before my half marathon to avoid getting injured. Later that night I iced my knee and went to bed hoping that the pain would go away overnight.
DAY OF THE RACE
The morning of the half...my knee was still feeling those shooting pains and I could barely bend my knee without wincing in agony. My sister and I woke up around 4:30am since the race started around 6am and in my head I kept thinking "should i do this?" My biggest fear was running the race and not being able to finish it with my sister, so I made the decision not to quit because I trained up to this moment and didn't want to disappoint myself and my sister. I taped up my knee with some KT tape, put my knee brace on, and put on my running shoes. We were ready to go.
When we got to the start line, I was getting more and more nervous because the more I moved my right knee, the more pain I felt. I was strategizing how in the world I was going to run 13.1 miles with a busted knee, and told myself that I had to push through. Throughout the race, my sister was the best supporter. She ran by my side the entire course when I knew she wanted to set a PR, so I'm very thankful that I had her to push me through every mile and every second of the race. Somehow I managed to run the first half of the race without stopping too much, but I was definitely slower going uphill and downhill because the weight on my knee was killing me. By mile 10, I had to stop almost once or twice every mile. Basically I was limping the entire time, keeping my right leg as stiff as possible and putting as much weight on my other leg. Not the best form to run, but it worked.
Running across the Golden Gate Bridge on a clear, sunny day was probably the most scenic view of the course. When we looped around, our cousin and his friend were there cheering us on! Towards the end of the race, my sister's coworkers were also there cheering us on! Special shoutout to them for cheering us on and making us amazing signs!
Even though this probably wasn't the best first half marathon to experience with a busted knee, I had a lot of fun. My goal was to complete a half marathon, and I finished hand-in-hand with my sister. They say running half marathons gets addicting, and my goal is to run another one next year.
Still not sure what happened to my knee but I fully recovered in about three weeks. My theory is that I overworked my muscles when I ran 10 miles one week before my half marathon and rested too long - I should have kept active by going on shorter runs, stretching, foam rolling, etc. throughout the week instead of being lazy.
