Running the Mayflower Half Marathon
On October 2nd, 2022 I ran my first half marathon in 1 hour and 56 minutes.
It was two years ago in June 2022 when I first decided I wanted to run a race. I joined ChaosSearch one month out of college. The company was hiring a wave of new engineers, myself included. And we both had growing pains.
When I left college I had control of my life for the first time and I did not feel good. I didn’t eat, sleep or socialize well. Every night I drowned myself in video games0 to escape. I needed a stronger direction.
I went back to the tools they gave us in high school. I made a SMART goal. After some brainstorming I chose the marathon.
- Specific : Running 26.2 miles
- Measurable : My phone gathers GPS data as I run. I can measure progress to my goal down to a few yards.
- Achievable : I had run up to 5 consecutive miles before. I’m pretty average, and average people run marathons all the time. I thought I could push myself that far.
- Relevant …
- Running was something I liked. I ran while at Northeastern University. It was how I explored the city of Boston.
- Running was exercise. I was in the worst shape of my life.
- Running kept me out in the real world. It unlocked athletic clubs to connect with people too.
- Timely : Picking a race meant picking a hard deadline.
There was only one problem. Coach potato to marathon guides recommended at least 5 months to get there. But November and December are cold in New England. No one was hosting a marathon at that time locally. I settled for a half in October.
Then came the hard part to these races, the training. I was starting from square one. My mileage was quite low. 5 miles was difficult. Even 3 miles was hard.
As I struggled something beautiful happened at work. My coworker Rudresh wanted to know more about my weekends. We started talking about my goal. As soon as he heard it he was in1. He signed up that day. He then went desk to desk asking other engineers to help our mission. We got myself, Rudresh, Jake, Anthony, Julia, Daniel, Gerry, Tom and David to join. Bailey and Bob joined for the 5K. We created a slack channel to share distances, speeds, and running routes. A small competition heated up to train the hardest. The energy behind us was incredible. This crew was special.2
(1) And that’s Rudresh in a nutshell!
(2) I couldn’t find the exact linkedin post, but we never stopped running together.
My training reached its apex when I ran 10 miles for the first time. It took me two months to get there. It was August 20th. To avoid the heat I started running late in the evening at 10PM. After a grueling two hours across Brookline in the dark I collapsed in my apartment. My ears were popping. My body was shivering. And I couldn’t help but grin. I have always felt a moral obligation to take myself to the limit. I could feel in my lungs and legs, I had given everything I had. Since my app estimated I had burned 1000 calories, I ordered takeout. After guzzling an entire pizza and a box of garlic knots3 I slipped into a happy slumber.
October 2nd was the day of the half marathon. I woke up to rain4 pitter-pattering on the roof of my hotel. I was staying the night to be extra well rested for my race. But nothing could have prepared me for the cold and wet race ahead. I hopped in my honda civic and met up with my coworkers in the parking lot. We had a nervous laugh about the conditions and headed over to the starting line. And then we were off!
Over the next 2 hours I soaked through every article of clothing I had. I passed a coworker 😄 and I almost pulled my hamstring racing to the finish line. I found my friends and we ate clam chowder and cider donuts in crammed tents. I was so proud of my team. We did hard things. At work we built a distributed database, and if that was not enough, we ran distance races in our spare time. Together we’d go on to run two marathons together and one of us would qualify for the Boston Marathon.