Today was a rough day. Well, in a way it was a learning experience. This morning was a charity run for a local government hospital. I signed up for the half marathon months ago.. before my life got too hectic and I got out of my training routine..

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Half Marathon Running Woes..

No running a half marathon without training while not advisable, is perfectly doable under normal circumstances.

Unfortunately, today's run wasn't your usual run-of-the-mill type. The first mistake I made was not getting enough sleep.. rookie mistake. I planned to be in bed by 9pm.. asleep by 10pm at the latest.. but then I remembered that I had to finish a project for work.. doh! It took me til just before midnight and I didn't fall asleep until nearly half 12..

I wanted to be out of the house by 4am because the race started at 5 and I needed to make sure I found a parking spot.. I woke up at quarter to four to the sound of hammering rain and roaring thunder. yup.. it was going to be one of those day..

Getting out of the house was surprisingly difficult.. stumbling around in the dark was one thing, but the power went out and that made it even more of a struggle.

I made it the the racing venue just after 4:30, giving me about 20 mins to warm up... but considering that it was pissing it down still, and I kept running into people who wanted to chat.. it wasn't much of a warm up..

_{[I didn't actually bring my camera to the run because I didn't want it to get soaked! another downside..]}src

Still, I've been late to a run before, I've run in the rain before, I've run without training before.. I was still pumped and ready to go.. and for the first kilometer, everything was going swimmingly.. but before I reached kilometer marker number two.. I knew I was in trouble.. my socks being soaked through were rubbing a lot.. I felt a blister on the back of my left ankle forming and I still had over 19km to run..! 😩

By the third kilometer it was feeling pretty raw, so I stopped and took off the soaking sock.. That seemed to help... for a few hundred meters.. but halfway through the fourth kilometer I was beginning to panic.. if I kept running, I was going to tear through the back of my ankle and do some serious damage.. I didn't want to give up, but I couldn't go on like that... what could I do?

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Continued in Part Two..