Who drinks before running a half-marathon? This guy.

For the last month or two I’ve been in a funk. Not a crazy, sad bastard, “I want to listen to Celine Dion and cry in my bubblebath” kind of funk.  I’ve just been a little… uninspired, athletically speaking.  And I thought that running last Sunday’s half marathon would be a good way to knock out some cobwebs.

If you’re one of my regular readers, you know that I prepared myself for this 13.1 mile road race by running MAYBE a total of 8 or 9 miles on a treadmill over the course of the last month. Never more than 1 mile a day.  I hadn’t run more than 1 mile in a day since last September… I hadn’t run outside since then, either.  Basically… I was totally unprepared for this.

The night before the race, I drank lots and lots of $3 Whole Foods wine with E.A. Horton while she made dinner and I put together my race day playlist on my iPod. I went to bed kind of late, past midnight.  As I nestled into my giant, king-size bed, I dug deep and thought, “I’m totally buzzed from that wine.”

7am.  Tiny headache.  I found my heart rate monitor.  Put on my tights, shorts, and new (not broken in) Reebok Premium running shoes.  And drove the 1/10 of a mile from my house to the race registration booths inside the brand new and amazing Quincy High School.

Long story short.  I wanted to run it in under 2 hours.  I’ve never run 13.1 miles before.  Hell, I’ve never run 8 miles!  But, I was way past to point of no return.  I strapped on my lucky headband and lined up with some of the team from RaceMenu and mix1boston and waited for the gun.  Aaaaand… here goes nothing…

By mile 3, I was on Quincy Shore Drive surrounded by a group of people I would run next to for the final 10 miles and my left ankle was feeling the burn.  My other ankle and my hip flexors wouldn’t feel the same burn until mile #8.  I kept my heart rate between 169-173 and cardio-vascularly I felt great!  I hit a couple of “highs” where I felt AMAZING… like I was literally on drugs.  But… my legs.  Oh, my legs.!  My legs were shot by mile 10.  But, I just crossed my fingers that I wouldn’t do any real damage to them and chugged on.

The last mile, I threw on one of the songs that made me feel the best over the previous 12 miles, “Heartbeats” by The Knife, and I cruised.

Crossing the finish line, I had NO idea what my time would be.  Just hoping for under 2 hours.  I looked at the clock and it said 1 hour, 38 minutes and 41 seconds.  That… was an awesome surprise. I guess I can kind of run after all!

You know, last year when I was doing this same kind of stuff, I was particularly harsh on the fatties and unhealthy people out there. I called them mean names and as my brother said, “I was writing an anti-fat person blog.”  That was never my intention.  My intention was to motivate, and sometimes people need a swift kick in the ass to get motivated. I am no exception to that rule.

I’m at a point in my life where I know what’s good for me and what makes me happy. I just hope that you can put yourself out there and challenge yourself in ways you’ve always wanted to.  There is so much in this life that we never get to experience.  So much awesome shit we’re not even aware of.  I can’t stress this enough… get out there and go do stuff.

Book Marc. A 3D book of boobs? Yes, please.

On a more everyday tip, in recent weeks I’ve discovered a lot of new places in New England and beyond.  I’d like to share some of those discoveries with you from now on.  So, to start slowly, here are two very different but fun discoveries I’ve made in recent weeks.  Book Marc (don’t take Grandma, unless she’s naughty) and the American Museum of Natural History (natural history is crrrrazy).

Chillin' with History.

That’s it.  Talk soon.  Email me… I like hearing from you people.

I love my life,

Mike Paul

p.s., Big thanks to my friend Tatiana for giving me the Miike Snow album in the summer of ’09.  It’s been a big soundtrack for my life and it was a good tool for memory recollection while I zoned out for some of the miles of the half marathon.