At the start of year 2010, running was about as enjoyable to me as watching Olympic Curling for seven days straight.  I appreciated the sport, and thought it was great that people could run marathon distances, but my goal was never to be a professional exerciser.  Ever.

I’m a hoopster. A baller. A dude that plays basketball. A true athlete.

I grew up playing basketball from the age of 13 and hoops is what I’ve done more in my 33 years of life than anything else. I’ve grown to feel so comfortable on the court. It’s home.

So how did I, the basketball playing (which I’ve just recently started getting back into), biased “athlete” decide to run 13.1 miles at 6am, 227 miles from my house?

Pride

I’m prideful a guy.

By day I work in the wealth management side of the banking industry for a large institution in the southeast.  Part of what I do in my job is meet with high net worth clients on a daily basis.

So I went to lunch with a potential client one afternoon in December 2009 and the conversation turned to him running half marathons.  I asked some questions, because even though I could never have seen myself running more than a couple of miles, or even wanting to, the thought of running 13.1 intrigued me from an accomplishment standpoint.  I wanted to know the kind of dedication it took to accomplish such a feat.

As lunch ended and we left the restaurant the gentleman in passing said that I should run a half marathon with him sometime.  I said, sure, not believing anymore would come of it.

Later that day he emailed me about a race on February 21^st in Fort Lauderdale.  At this point I knew he was serious and thought ok, let me go home and run a bit and see what kind of shape I am in.

Exercise has never been something I’ve been known by.  To look at me, many would think I am a frequent visitor of the gym or playing some sport, but really it’s just my metabolism.  I really feel that when food enters my body, my metabolism rolls its eyes, lets out a small laugh and moves on.  At the time I was really doing NOTHING, besides coming home after work and watching TV.

So I got home and threw some basketball clothes on and went for a few laps in my neighborhood.  I made it about 2 miles, at a pace that can only be described as slightly faster than walking, and quit.  My lungs were burning, I was out of breath and my legs were tired.  Mentally I gave up because I was so far from the goal of ever doing 13.1 miles.  I went out one more time a couple of days later and pushed myself to 3 miles and quit again.  I was done.

Cold Front and Competition

Fortunately the area of Central Florida got hit with a massive cold spell in late December 2009 and the first part of January so I had an excuse a valid reason not to run.

After the holidays I met up with the gentleman, who was now a client, to discuss some business.  He asked me how the running was coming and I told him I hadn’t run at all because of the weather.  I thought for sure this subject was dead, but he looked at his calendar and said we have about five weeks, do you think you can dedicate yourself to get ready in that time?

I have always been so competitive.  Doing anything growing up I always tried to compete at it or at least mentally prepare as I was competing.  Competing is what made things fun for me.

So I told him yes, I could get ready.

I left his office thinking, this is crazy!  How am I going to do this?

Two days later he sent me a schedule that I was to begin following the following Monday.  There was no turning back at this point.

So I called my wife, who was out doing business calls near a retail store that carried the Garmin 305 GPS Watch, the same watch the client used for tracking his running, and had her pick it up for me.

Running was about to become part of my life.

This was the schedule:

Week 1:

1/18, 1/20, 1/22: 4 mile run

1/24: 6 mile run

Week 2:

1/26: 4 mile run

1/28: 5 mile run

1/31: 7 mile run

Week 3:

2/2: 4 mile run

2/4: 5 mile run

2/7: 8 mile run

Week 4:

2/9: 5 mile run

2/11: 5 mile run

2/13: 10 mile run

Week 5:

2/17: 4 mile run

2/18: 4 mile run

2/21: RACE DAY 13.1 Miles

Luckily for me, my wife lives at the gym.  She works out about six days a week and has been wanting me to exercise for years now:-)  So I showed her the schedule, she lit up like a morning ray of light and we began.

Stay Alive, Finish, and Never Walk

I had three goals when I began the half marathon journey in the afternoon on the 18^th of January.  The first, stay alive. The second, finish. Lastly, my goal was to never walk.  Three simple goals that I hoped were attainable.

When I would tell others of my three goals of Stay Alive, Finish, and Never Walk, I would get a chuckle coupled with some “you can do it” and a little “is he crazy?”

Setting the “realistic” three goals took a lot of weight off my shoulders and let me enjoy the process.  As a guy, my first instinct is to worry about my time.  To be competitive.  In fact almost every guy I told about the upcoming race would ask how long did I think it would take me.

So with goals in mind, my wife and I set out and began knocking off one run after the other.  Every week I ran a NEW personal longest distance of my life.

The most difficult runs came with week one’s 6 miler and week three’s 8 miler.  On both runs I hit a mental block and thought about giving up.  Had my wife not been there circling back for me (yes, she was faster…hahah) I probably would have called it a day.  I didn’t though and finished and moved another step closer to the goal.

Mental Toughness (killing doubt)

To me the mental side of running far exceeds the physical.  The thought of making your body do something rigorous for an hour, hour and a half, or even two hours straight is daunting.  Especially for a guy who loved to chill on the nice leather couch at the house.  Doubt would at times try to hitch a ride and have a conversation.

Once I was able to get past the mental block of being able to run those distances for those long periods of time, I was golden.  I could somewhat enjoy the run.

After a couple of weeks, 4 and 5 mile runs were greeted with enthusiasm because they were “short” runs.  My legs would smile at me and tell the rest of myself “you got this!”

In the end I only missed one run and that was the last 4 miler.  What I figured out was that when I would run it wasn’t so much my lung capacity that was strained as it was my legs.  They, my legs, truly lacked the conditioning that was needed to put them through such a task.  I of course was able to do it, but they weren’t ready to recover at the rate I felt was needed prior to the race.  So I rested them.

Race Day

Race day came at 3:45 am on Sunday, the 21^st. I downed a protein bar and some coconut water and we headed to the start line.  The race would officially begin at 6am, but were encouraged to be there by 5am.

When the gun sounded and the 2,856 competitors began moving forward the sun was still resting so it was nice and cool.  I envisioned myself over and over again running through the finish line and began the race.  Again, this was going to be a NEW personal longest run of my life!  I would be running 3.1 miles further than I had ever run before.

During my five weeks of training, whenever I approached the long runs on Sunday’s I would run at a slower pace.  The goal was to just finish and give my mind the sense of accomplishment.  I kind of approached the half marathon the same way that day.

As we made it over the bridge on Los Olas Blvd, about a mile in to the run, the Sun was peeking its head up almost as to check in on us.  It was gorgeous.

We turned the corner and began running alongside the ocean on A1A, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  The location couldn’t have been better for my first half marathon.  I could see the large ships off in the distance as I worked through something I had never done.  My eyes were happy.

The rest of me was happy too as I kind of did a self check around mile 4.  I told myself, do that two more times and you’ve got this thing licked.

At mile 8, I did another check and told myself, ok, just run 5 more miles and you’ve done it!

In the back of my head I was a little worried about what would happen after mile 10.  I had never run longer than 10 miles, which I just done the week before and when I completed that there was no part of me that felt I had more left to give.  On top of that a coworker had told me that he always hit a wall around mile 12 and no matter how much he trained he could never get past that.  He would just run out of gas.

I was determined to be stronger than him and used his story of defeat as my motivation.  I would let no run beat me.

Mile 10 came and I knew I was down the home stretch.  A simple 3 miler was all that remained between me and my first half marathon.  We pushed forward.

As we came down to the final mile, the sponsor had each quarter of mile marked with huge banners on the side of the road.  I knew I was moments away from my accomplishment.

As the finish line approached I grabbed the hand of my wife and we crossed the finish line together.  With a time of 2:07:02 (watch time) we had done it!!!

In just 5 weeks I had gone from my couch to finishing a 13.1 mile half marathon!

One month later I ran my second half marathon in Saint Petersburg and improved my time by almost 10 minutes!

I’m a Runner!

Life is amazing, if you allow it to be.  One seemingly normal meeting opened the door to the sport of running and I actually ran through it.  By being open to something, by putting aside my predetermined feelings, I have been able to enjoy something in 2010 that I NEVER would have thought was possible for myself.

To go from hating the sport to running over 400 miles (last count) this year is amazing to me!  I use the motivation of getting in the best shape of my life for my matchup with MJ to keep me going.

I encourage you to be OPEN to new things.  Whether that be running, trying new foods, or just seeing a situtation through the eyes of another idividual…DO IT!

You never know the journey that is awaiting you, unless you take that first step.

Your Turn!

If you’ve done something this year that you never would have dreamed of doing at the start of 2010, I’d love to hear about it.  Please leave a comment below and tell me about your experience.

Note:  Most running publications would recommend a minimum 12 week training program for a half marathon distance run.  I did it in five weeks, but wouldn’t necessarily recommend that for you.  Consult your physician as needed.

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Connect:  Twitter (@KennyEller) and mevsMJ.com Facebook Fan Page.

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If you’re new to the site, I set out in August 2010 to get a game of 1-on-1 vs. my childhood hero Michael Jordan.  This site is about that journey…through every valley, to every mountain top of triumph!