A year ago, I achieved a long-time goal of running my first half-marathon. At that time, I hadn’t decided if I would do it again. Given that the race landed on Star Wars Day this year, I felt I needed to, so I ran a second half-marathon.
I completed the race in 2:46 which is 14 minutes faster than last year. The biggest contributing factor to the faster time is that I never slowed down to walk; I ran the whole thing. The weather wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t terrible. The occasional light rain was a pleasant relief. In some cases, I hardly noticed it was raining at all.
Despite the rain, I still had fun running the race. I may even have had more fun this year than last year. Perhaps that’s because I better understood what I was getting myself into.
Will There Be A Third Time?
Here are some interesting race/running statistics as of 2024. Over 621 million people run worldwide. Of those 621 million, only 2.1 million complete a half-marathon. I am among 0.3% of runners worldwide. That is quite an accomplishment. So will I run it a third time?
If today were the last day to sign-up for the race in 2026 I would not do it. I feel I may have peaked this year. I ran it faster and I ran the whole thing so there aren’t a lot of things I can change. The older I get the harder it has been to train and I turned 45 this year. The rest of the year I am going to focus on losing 15-20 pounds and keeping it off. If I succeed in doing that then I’ll re-evaluate in January.
There are potentially other factors that could contribute to running it again. If I can get my pace at or below a twelve-minute mile, consistently, I’ll consider it. I would also consider running it again if anyone, whom I know personally, agrees to run it with me.
13.1 miles sounds like a lot to most people, even consistent runners. It still sounds like a lot to me and I’ve run it twice. So we’ll see; check back in about 8 months.
“I’m sure you’ll do it this time… Finish the race, of course!” — Kitster
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