A Lazy Dude's Guide to Running a Half Marathon

Last weekend, after running a half marathon, I found myself in a nearby diner waiting patiently to chow down on what would be a big ol' breakfast. The diner was nearly spitting distance away from the finish line for the half marathon. While waiting for a table, I ended up chatting with another participant and we talked about our times. Mine was 2 hours and 2 minutes. She did it in 2 hours and 10 minutes. Then we talked about how there's one point where you're running into this park and the way it loops around, you can see the front runners who were probably gonna win this thing miles ahead of you, running like gazelles. She said, "we could do that, we just have to put in the right training for it." And she's right. But it also felt like it belittled our accomplishment, as if we did nothing to deserve what we got... like we didn't train for this or put forth any effort (and for all I know, maybe she didn't, but I did).

Here's the thing, I'm a lazy dude. I'm a lazy dude who just happens to enjoy running. I run because I'm a lazy dude. About six years ago, I was being my usual lazy self and watching tv after work. I'd usually watch tons of tv after work. I always figured I earned the right because I put in a full day at the office. But my tv watching habit started to bother me. I started thinking about how my cycle for many weekdays in a row would be work, tv, sleep, repeat. And that realization felt awful. So I got up and ran. It's all I could think to do at the time to try and combat my lazy lifestyle.

The first time out, I told myself I'd run as far as I could go which wasn't very far at all. When I got home, I figured I'd do the same thing again tomorrow and the next day and so on. And here we are six years later, and I've now run the Jersey City half marathon twice. In between, I worked my way up. The endurance comes with time. It was a slow build, but I've always pretty much kept the same goal... I'll run as far as I can go and that's about it.

When I think back to day one and how I couldn't even run a full mile nonstop, I think about what I would've thought in that moment about the idea of running 13.1 miles nonstop. Or if present me could go back in time and tell 24 year old me (four years before I started running), "Hey, you just ran a half marathon. Thought you'd like to know." 24 year old me wasn't about that. He would've scoffed or not cared or told me to get out of the way because I'm blocking his view of Seinfeld reruns.

I'm not the fastest runner out there. I'm never gonna be that. I'm always going to be that lazy dude who decided the only logical solution to try and combat his own laziness was to get up and run. I'm never going to win the race. But that's okay. I didn't do this for racing. I did this to not be lazy or be less lazy. That alone is good enough for me. Always has been. Get off my ass and run till I can't run anymore. That's always been the objective. And if that's landed me at 2 hours and 2 minutes for a half marathon, I'm pretty proud of that.