Nashville Rock n Roll Half Marathon
the Meyer perspective
Good afternoon everyone!
It’s been a while. I apologize for that.
This year has been amazing so far, but I think I bit off too much in terms of content creation and side projects. As such, I inevitably burnt out and just needed a break.
I’m slowly trying to build my habits back in and figure out exactly what I want to do.
While I continue making short videos, my true passion for content creation is still writing.
For me, it’s more enjoyable than listening to my own voice or trying to understand video editing software or Tik Tok. But…I will continue learning those things too as they are valuable skills to know.
All that to say, I have really wanted to write some posts about running.
So here we go!
As some of you may or may not know, last week, Taylor and I set out to run the Nashville Rock n Roll half marathon with her mom and sister.
It was a massive success! (spoilers).
Taylor had 2 main goals:
Cross the finish line (as this was her first half marathon)
Cross the finish line in under 3 hours
She demolished the goal and crossed the finish line in 2:53!
My goal as I continue working towards qualifying for the Boston marathon was to run this half marathon in under 1:40.
I slid right in at 1:39!
So…now that we have achieved our goals, I wanted to take some time to reflect on what led us to achieving these goals, how it feels to have done it, what I learned, and what’s next for us.
Trust the Process
The biggest thing I took away from this race was to trust the process.
For the first time in my life I actually made a legit running plan, stuck to it, and trusted the process the whole way through.
I plan to do some more detailed articles and videos on my actual training regimen, but I’ll give you some of the highlights that made the biggest difference.
To get the full picture, I first need to explain my training protocol before learning the proper methods.
Training Before
I knew I wanted to run a half marathon in less than 1:40. This meant I needed to maintain a pace of around a 7’33” per mile for 13.1 miles.
When I started preparing I could maintain that pace for about 2 miles before having to stop.
I assumed the best way to train was to simply continue running at that pace and slowly increase the mileage until I could run 13.1 miles at that pace.
For the runners and coaches out there, you are probably shuddering at this thought.
Everyone else might think that seems like a reasonable strategy.
I didn’t run every single day, I only ran 3 times a week and just at that pace as long as I could.
It was miserable, I made no progress, and it was very discouraging. My goal of a sub 1:40 seemed impossible.
But then I learned the proper way to train.
Training After
Here is what I learned:
7’33” is my race pace…you don’t consistently train at your race pace. (Unless you love getting injured and never making progress)
9’00” is my “easy” pace…this is what 80% of my weekly mileage was supposed to be
There are 3 other important paces: Threshold: 7’22”, Interval: 6’47”, and Repetition: 6’23”. 20% of my weekly mileage involved these paces.
Without going into much more detail right now and boring you, the biggest takeaway for training was: slow down.
The difference between your “easy” pace and your “fast” pace is that your easy pace trains your aerobic system: hearts, lungs, etc.
Sometimes when you train that way, you may not even realize it.
We all assume our heart gets a better workout when we can physically feel it beating out of our chest, our lungs burn from running fast, and we’re constantly trying to catch our breath.
Apparently…that’s very wrong.
When we run fast, we’re training more of our anaerobic system, so our actual running muscles.
Technically, we’re trying to build up our lactate threshold. I won’t go into detail on what that is because I still don’t fully know. But it basically means we’re training our muscles to be able to be stronger so they can run faster for longer without cramping, giving out, or telling our brains to quit.
All in all, it is suggested to run the majority of your runs at that easy pace, not a hard pace.
Furthermore, it’s suggested to never make your long runs longer than 90 minutes. And your long runs are at your easy pace.
So unless your easy pace is very very fast, your long runs won’t exceed much more than 10 miles.
Further, furthermore, the longest training session I had at my race pace was 5 miles.
That’s right, I walked into the race, prepared to run at 7’33” for 13.1 miles and the longest I had ever held that pace was 5 miles!
But I trusted the process. I made the plan and I stuck to it.
And it worked!
Race Day
Race day was a fun experience on its own.
We were told by the volunteers that the prior year the parking lot filled up at 5:30am!
We, ambitiously, decided that meant we should get to the parking lot at 4:45am, which meant that the alarm started ringing around 4:15am.
Luckily for us, with the time change it only felt like 5:15am.
Oddly enough, we felt energetic and ready to go.
We parked and sat in the car for a good hour and a half only to then get out of our car and see tons of empty parking spots :/
It was still worth it, though. We had a nice relaxing morning, got our nutrition in, some water, bathroom breaks, and all the good things. We didn’t have any traffic getting in, we didn’t worry, and it was better than the other way around.
After a half mile walk we made it to the race lines.
We hung out, went to the bathroom one more time, and headed to our corrals.
Here is where I made my first mistake.
I was supposed to start in corral 2, which got their own starting time countdown after the super fast elite runners in corral 1.
However, we didn’t head to our corrals until like 15 minutes prior to start.
I thought that would be enough, but apparently with limited entrances into the corrals and trying to stuff 20,000 people in, I got trapped in corral 5.
This took a massive toll on my first 2 miles as I spent that time catching up, wasting energy passing people, and getting stuck behind slower runners on the narrow paths.
Perhaps it was a good thing as this was actually a lot of fun, preoccupied my mind, and forced me to start slower instead of burning out too fast in the beginning.
It did, however, make me feel like I was playing catchup the entire race.
And when I crossed mile 12 and heard my watch say 1 hour, 31 minutes, I knew it was going to be tight.
It didn’t help that the first half of mile 13 was uphill!
Honestly, I might not have made my goal if it wasn’t for one of the elite runners.
He had already finished and was coming back up the hill around the 12.5 mark encouraging us, telling us to let off the brakes because the rest of the way was downhill.
That was the boost I needed, I took off, and finished right under my goal!
What’s Next?
Our next big half marathon is in October where we plan to race in our old stomping grounds at the Durham Bull City Race Fest!
Until then, Taylor really wants to work on her 5k speed and get her 5k under 30 minutes!
My plan is to continue ticking my paces down slowly, sticking to the plan, and trusting the process.
My October Goal: run the Durham half marathon in a sub 1:25!
What Have I Learned?
I have learned a ton about running both physically, mentally, and even spiritually. I want to do a deeper dive on this topic soon.
But for now, I’ll say this. I have learned it’s all vanity, vapor, dust in the wind. Ecclesiastes taught me that.
That sounds vague and depressing, but what I mean is this: at the end of it all, whether I never run again or I get a gold medal in the olympics, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not what will satisfy me.
No amount of goals achieved will give me ultimate satisfaction.
This is a very important mindset because if I’m not allowed to run ever again, it won’t crush me. If I fail at all my goals it won’t crush me. And, hopefully, if I achieve all my goals it won’t feed an ego, but encourage me to help others achieve theirs too.
Because no matter what the goal is, there are always higher ones after that. And at the end, it’s all vanity.
So I won’t stop running. I will continue to set higher goals. But not because it’s satisfying.
But because it’s fun, it’s enjoyable and fills me with joy to achieve things. It’s also a pretty healthy hobby. Plus, it’s a great sport to use for traveling and exploring the world, which Tay and I love to do.
With that, we’ll call it a day! I hope you all have a great day. If you liked this article, be sure to share it around or consider subscribing if you aren’t already.