Turning 50 & Running the Space Coast Marathon

As I realized my fifties were getting nearer, a thought occasionally crossed my mind – was it possible that I could turn 50 and be in the best physical shape of my life?

That theoretically was not too much of a stretch. I had always been way more of a geek than an athlete, and for most of my adult life I had not played any organized sports nor focused on exercise more than just sporadically.

I was perhaps in peak form during my first two years of high-school – when I played soccer, football (hated it!), wrestling, and tried out for crew.

But even at my high school best – I was a mediocre JV Wrestler with only a single competitive win, and an ongoing knee injury.

Running? That was the worst part of warmups, and it was something I never ever imagined liking.

That all changed in 2010 – when Cherie discovered the Couch to 5K training program, and she decided she wanted to ramp up to being able to run a 5K non-stop.

The whole concept of running (on purpose! without being chased!) seemed crazy to me – but I eventually decided to give it a try too.

And to my utter surprise, I liked it.

I slowly ramped up to being able to run a 5K non-stop – and while we were living on St. John in the USVI in 2011 I even managed to train for and run in the notorious 8 Tuff Miles race up and over the 999′ high island (read my experience here).

It was the greatest physical challenge of my life, up until that point.

Later that year – shortly before my 39th birthday, I thought to look around online for a Turkey Trot 5K or maybe a 10K to try and experience another organized race.

And to my surprise – I saw that the biggest event of the Central Florida running calendar was just 8 days away – the 40th Annual Space Coast Marathon & Half-Marathon!

With barely a week to train – I decided to make the half-marathon my birthday gift to my body, and to show encouragement Cherie (who hadn’t kept up running) signed up to walk it too.

Having never run anything close to that far, I hoped to run the first half, and would have been perfectly happy to walk the second. But to my surprise I was able to run the whole race, and my official finishing time was 2:49:50, with an average pace of 12:58/mile.

I shared my experience in the race in detail in an old blog post, including the story of how an overheated AC/DC song lead to a woman asking me to flash her.

I finished 2011 being able to run further and faster than I would have ever dreamed possible – and I was in better shape than I ever had been.

But I hadn’t managed to make running (or exercise in general) a habit.

And in the years since – that 2011 high point slipped away.

Could I ever get back there?

Could I ever manage to go further? Faster?

Getting Back Into Running

In 2017, for my 45th birthday, I decided to try running again.

After years without any running at all, I was pleased to discover I could still run 5K non-stop.

But running was still only an on-again / off-again thing – with at best an occasional run every month or two. I never ran particularly far, or particularly fast – and I was certainly not getting much fitter.

The only habit I managed to settle into was running every year on my birthday – my annual “warranty renewal” runs:

• 45 – 2017 – 3.46 miles, 11’55” Pace, 45:00 (Lakes of Melbourne, FL – Flat)
• 46 – 2018 – 6.37 miles, 13’01” Pace, 1:22:53 (Sanford, FL – Flat)
• 47 – 2019 – 4.69 miles, 15’59” Pace, 1:15:01 (Austin, TX – Hills!)
• 48 – 2020 – 5.07 miles, 12’34”, 1:03:45 (Timber Pines, FL – Mostly Flat)

But things started to shift in 2020 – during the height of the pandemic and political turmoil, focusing on health and fitness and closing the rings on our Apple Watches became something positive for Cherie and I to do together, and to focus on.

Apple then rolled out their Fitness+ program – with video classes which we adopted regularly to train with HIIT, yoga, pilates, weight training and stationary biking.

We also got our e-Bikes, which lead to us doing lots of riding – increasingly with the electric turned off.

Plus we were going out for twice daily walks.

Being active was becoming habit for us.

And we’ve kept it all up since then, reversing our start of the pandemic weight gain due to too many InstaPot cheesecakes while binging TV.

And in the process of all this increased focus on fitness, I found that “going for a run” was becoming a weekly habit too.

And to avoid slipping out of it, a year ago I set a goal of running every Sunday, rain or shine.

And when I went for my annual birthday run last year, I blew myself away:

• 49 – 2021 – 6.30 miles, 11’36” Pace, 1:13:10 (Trail Run, Benson, AZ – 545 Elevation Gain! – Fastest ever 10K?!)

Regular training actually pays off!

I’ve kept up my “Sunday Runday” commitment ever since – even catching Covid this summer couldn’t stop me.

The training paid off in speed too. In 2021, my official time in the “Melissa’s Race 5K” in Sanford was 32:25:57, at a 10:28 Pace. That was my fastest official 5K ever, and my second fastest run of that length ever.

But in April 2022 for the same race, my official time was 27:56.6, at a 9:01 Pace!

I was now faster than I had ever been!

And that same race kick started Cherie into trying Couch-to-5K again now that she was much more physically fit too. 

So with all this habit-building training, what would I be able to do for my 50th birthday?

The Space Coast Half Marathon

In August we decided to shift our van trip plans to return to Y-Not in Sanford in late September instead of mid November. This meant we would be back on the boat in Florida for an extended period of time before my birthday.

Taking the new schedule into consideration and thinking back to my 39th birthday run – I decided to look into the possibility of running in the Space Coast Half Marathon again.

It made sense to aim to do the run again – if I could beat my time from 2011, I would be officially entering my 50’s fitter and faster than I had ever been.

Cherie and I talked over the plan – and she was onboard with at least walking the course again too.

But when I went to sign up for the race, I noticed that it only cost an extra $20 to sign up for the full marathon. And the way the course is laid out, full marathon runners could just turn off mid-way and complete the north route half-marathon with no issue at all.

So hey, why not keep my options open…

A little bit of wine might have been involved, but on September 12th I ended up signing up to run the FULL MARATHON as a stretch goal, and Cherie signed up for the half-marathon. 

Could I possibly ramp up from running a 5K’ish once a week, to a full marathon, in just 2.5 months?!

*gulp*

A Training Partner: The Best Birthday Present Ever

Cherie was my initial inspiration to try running way back in 2010 – but it never stuck for her.

But earlier in 2022 she had gotten into Couch-to-5K again, which gave us a running schedule we could keep together. She would do run-walk intervals to build up to running 5K non-stop, and I was using the same nifty Watch to 5K Apple Watch app and intervals to work on ramping up my speed and endurance.

It was a blast to run together, until she hurt her hip running on hills over the summer and decided to take time to heal. She had gotten up to running about 20-25 minutes non stop at a time.

But with the Space Coast Marathon on the horizon – she told me that her birthday gift to me would be making sure that I was ready to safely complete my goals. She was going to train up too (likely walking), so we would once again become training partners.

When I posted on Facebook that I had signed up for the marathon – we got deluged with overwhelming and somewhat intimidating advice from runner friends about training, nutrition, shoes, intimate chaffing, “goo”, and more.

One thing that was suggested by several people was to look into the Galloway Run-Walk-Run method, a technique pioneered by legendary running coach and Olympian Jeff Galloway that combines running with walking intervals to reduce the risk of injury on long runs.

Jeff is the official trainer for the Disney Marathon – so this technique is particularly popular in Florida, and it makes marathon training approachable for beginner and older runners.

We recognized that this was the technique that our amazing friend Ann had used to complete the Disney Dopey Challenge (5K + 10K + Half Marathon + Full Marathon – on four consecutive days!) year after year.

Cherie dove into researching Galloway Training – and realized that it was a nice match for the Couch-to-5K intervals she was already used to running. With her hip now feeling better, she decided to give it a try on one of her training walks.

Within a week, she was up to run-walk-running 4 miles.

Cherie then worked out an abbreviated training schedule for us to ramp up to marathon and half marathon distance (we only had two months left!).

We would be doing 3 runs per week – 30 minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and progressively longer run on Sundays.

I was still focused primarily on the half marathon distance – thinking that I could aim for running that non-stop, and then perhaps just walk or run-walk the remainder of the full marathon.

But Cherie encouraged me to consider the Galloway method for the full race – and she shared with me that because of how it mixes up the load on your muscles and varies your heart rate, run-walking can actually result in a faster overall pace than running non-stop can for many runners.

And so I gave it a try on a long 8 mile training run – and even with walking intervals, I still managed an 11’18″/mile overall pace – very similar to what I had achieved on a long training run the week before running non-stop.

It was the same end result, but not nearly as exhausting.

Running like this actually made doing the full marathon seem like an achievable goal!

So from there on out – I focused on speed and running non-stop during my 30 minute runs on Tuesday and Thursday, amazing myself that I got to a point that I could now regularly run a 5K in less than 30 minutes.

And on weekends we focused on endurance, and we ramped up to longer and longer runs. After some experimentation I settled into intervals of running 90 seconds, walking 30 seconds – using an app to buzz me on my watch when it was time to change the pace.

Training became even more challenging for us when we had TWO hurricanes to deal with, three weeks without electricity, and weeks of flooding. The flooding had us having to wade to shore before dawn in galoshes – only to then change into our running shoes in the van before running for hours and then repeating the process to get back to the boat.

And yet – working as a team, we kept ourselves motivated and dedicated to the goal!

After I managed to survive (barely!) a 22 mile training run in 4:44, and Cherie absolutely rocked a 12 mile run – we knew we were both ready for race day.

A week before the race, the long-range weather forecast looked absolutely perfect for running – 47 degrees at the start, 74 by the time I was aiming to cross the finish line 5 or 6 hours (!!!) later.

Final Preparations For Launch

The Space Coast Marathon is always the Sunday after Thanksgiving – and we had a busy week before the race.

It started with a few days at an RV resort soaking in hot tubs to try and relax, followed by family Thanksgiving and birthday feasts on Thursday and Friday. All this relaxing was intermixed with our final gentle training runs, tapering down to let our bodies get ready for race day.

On Saturday we drove to Cocoa, FL to pick up our race packets – arriving just in time to see a SpaceX launch on Saturday afternoon.

I was nervous – and had a touch of a sniffle, leaving me on edge that I might have caught a cold and would not be in top form.

Now we just needed to kill some time until the start… At 6AM!

While walking through the adorable downtown Cocoa Village where the race was set to start and end, we saw that Peter Pan was playing that night at the Historic Cocoa Village Playhouse – so we bought tickets to keep ourselves distracted so that we wouldn’t be fretting about the race.

We got dressed up for date night, feasted on Thai food (carb loading!), saw a play, and then went to bed early.

We are SO thankful for our camper van – we found parking just steps from the starting line, and our lithium system was able to keep the AC running to keep us and Kiki cool all night long.

We needed the AC because as the long range forecast had evolved into a short range forecast – the perfect running weather had evaporated!

Instead of cool beautiful weather – it was forecast to be hot and humid, with the low temperature at dawn being a humid 71 – and the high quickly climbing to 84.

At least it was forecast to be mostly cloudy, and breezy?

So on to race day!

Race Day Experience

We had gotten used to getting up early for our Sunday training runs – running before dawn is often the only way to avoid the brutal Florida sun, and it is beautiful to watch the sunrise.

This morning when we stepped outside – the parking lots was filled with runners stretching, and at least half a dozen other vans camped nearby.

We walked through the crowd the short distance to our starting corral (D – the furthest back) and waited for the literal countdown that would signal the start of the race.

There was a substantial crowd – 822 running the marathon, 871 running the north course half marathon, and 1942 running the south course half marathon.

There were some serious runners in the mix – one older gentleman standing near us had a sign on his back saying that he was running his 99th marathon, of this year!

I’d be happy to just manage my first!

There were also numerous pace groups milling around too. The marathon had official pacers running or run-walking with target marathon finishing times of between 3:20 and 6:30. Anyone who wanted to run with a group could pick a pacer that they wanted to follow to keep on target for their goals.

Not having ever run in a group – we just were there to do our own thing.

When starting gun went off and the race began – Cherie and I kissed and we set out at our individual paces.

With the crowd and excitement of the start – I actually set out running non-stop, not following the run-walk method at all.

I was hoping that I wouldn’t burn out to soon – but decided to just consider the first 5K a running warm-up, waiting for the crowd to thin out so that it would be easier to keep changing paces.

Once I did switch to run-walk-run pacing, I found myself playing leapfrog with a large group following one of the official race run-walk-run pacers who was holding a sign indicating that he was targeting a 5:15 marathon finishing time.

I eventually realized that group was following a 60 second run, 30 second walk pace – so I switched from my 90/30 pacing to join the pack.

It was actually nice to not have to worry about my own timing, and to just look for hand signals from the pacer indicating when it was time to walk or run again.

As the sun slowly rose over the Indian River, it was a beautiful time on the course. There were bystanders cheering, one guy setting up a table offering beer (“Who will be the first to take one?”) to runners, and lots of fun crowd energy.

My first split time was 10K, in 1:13:43 – a pace I was very happy with.

Shortly after I hit the north-route midway turn around point, and then started heading back south – towards the rising sun.

Using Find My on my phone I was able to make sure that I was ready to snag a kiss with Cherie as our paths crossed.

All the while on the north route – I was able to keep up comfortably with the 5:15 pacer as we headed back towards downtown Cocoa Village, where the north route half marathon runners would finish, and the full marathon runners would continue on to the south course.

I even pulled ahead of the pace group briefly to cross the half marathon split at 2:35:00 – nearly 15 minutes better than my time running the half marathon in 2011.

I was officially faster than I was at 39!

Only this time – I still had another 13.1 miles to go!

The Second HOTTER Half

After crossing the half-way point, I found it harder and harder to keep up with the 5:15 pacer – and I noticed that the bulk of the group that had been with him had also either fallen behind or had finished racing at the half.

As it began to get hotter and hotter, I started to wonder if maybe that is all I should have gone for as well.

The predicted overcast was absent, there was barely any breeze, and the sun was increasingly brutal.

One pleasant distraction – I used the Find My app to watch in real time as Cherie’s dot crossed the finish of her half, finishing in 3:18:03 at a pace of 15:08.

It was an absolutely astonishing achievement considering she ramped up to that from nothing in just two months.

She sent me a photo from her finish – and the thought of joining her there gave me extra motivation to keep going.

When I reached the southern course turnaround, my pace was slowing down and it felt like the miles were getting longer.

And they were indeed literally getting longer – in duration.

Checking my splits after the race, I ran mile 7 cruising at 11’19″/mile – but by mile 19 I was at 13’20″/mile – and mile 24 was my slowest, at 14’46″/mile.

I overheard other runners talking about having “hit the wall” – and some were literally passed out on the side of the road.

But I never felt like I lost all energy – I was still upbeat and smiling, just roasting and increasingly thirsty – despite the ample water, goo, and gatorade stations.

What I did notice was that I had lost a lot of my capability to accelerate. I had settled back into my 90 run / 30 walk intervals once I stopped trying to stick with the 5:15 pace group, but every time I would transition it would take me longer and longer to get back up to speed and find my running stride.

Somewhere around the 23 mile mark, the 5:30 finish time pacer and his group passed me – and they started to get to the point where I could barely see them ahead. The thought of slowing down and just walking to the finish began to seriously cross my mind.

But then I decided to change strategy – if it was the transition that was slowing me down, why not just settle into a slow run – without the walk intervals?

I did that for the final two excruciatingly long miles – slowly picking up speed, gaining on and then passing the 5:30 pacer and his group.

The final loop through Cocoa Village and to the finish line felt like it took forever – but I was actually able to crank up my pace to cross the finish line running at 8’29″/mile – a final sprinting pace I can hardly believe I could manage to reach after having already run 26.2 miles.

My final official time was 5:30:20, with an average overall pace of 12’37″/mi.

Yeehaw!

As for that 5:30 pacer I passed? He actually finished in 5:33:03.

Clearly the heat and humidity was slowing even the professionals down – and we talked to someone at the finish who had run eight other marathons, and he said this had been the most brutal of them all – despite how flat it was.

The Finish Line

Cherie had been able to take some time to recuperate in the van enjoying some AC with the cat, and she was waiting for me at the finish with a kiss, water, and a bra full of bananas – just in case I needed immediate calories.

But what I most needed was something cold in my mouth, and shade overhead.

We wandered over to the finishing zone – and I grabbed some cold chocolate milk. It was the most refreshing thing I have ever tasted.

Then some pizza, then some beer.

And overall – I felt good.

Tired, but good.

No blisters, little chaffing, and not nearly as completely wiped out as I had been after running the half in 2011.

Mission Accomplished – I ran a marathon, and made it into my fifties fitter and faster than I have ever been!

And the absolute best part – we did it as a team.

Even though we ran different races at different paces – there is no way I could have accomplished this without teamwork.

And I think that is what is most exciting about the future – Cherie and I are looking forward to keeping up our three runs a week routine.

The habit has taken hold, and it is something we can do together – and it has had results that have paid off in so many ways.

Yay!

Video Update

The evening after the race, somehow we managed to host a YouTube live sharing our experience while we were still hovering between exuberance and exhaustion:

Cherie’s Race Story

Cherie here, chiming in with a recap of my race experience!

When we crossed the start line, I knew this experience was going to be much different than our training – when it was just me, the concrete and the early morning bunnies who would hop out to greet me.

I was now in a herd of running humans.

And while those around me were mostly moving at roughly my slow poke pace, for a long while we were still sorting out where we all fit.

Most everyone towards the back of the herd were on some version of the Galloway Method. This meant we were all constantly leapfrogging each other as we switched between running and walking – some with loud interval timers that beeped incessantly.

With all the traffic and beeping, it was actually more annoying than fun at this point.

During my weekday short 30 minute training runs – I’d do 30sec/30sec run-walk intervals. And I was managing a 14’10 – 14’45 pace on these runs. For my longer runs however, I’d slow it down to 20/40 intervals to give myself more recovery time for endurance – which resulted in a 15’11” pace for my longest 12.1 mile run up to this point.

I assumed that keeping a similar pace for the big day was a reasonable expectation – and estimated that completing the half in under 3.5 hours would be swell, but 3 hrs and 20 min was within reach.

Out of the gate, my first mile was clocking in at an amazing 14’01”.

What the…??? How was that possible? Race energy? Broken watch? Did I put on roller skates instead of sneakers??

That certainly wasn’t going to be sustainable. I had to slow it down.

And then I noticed the sun starting to peak over the horizon – and that there were not many clouds in the sky as forecast. And I looked ahead on the course, the ‘gently rolling hills’ described were looking like freaking mountains to this girl who had trained on all flat surfaces.

And where was this shade they talked about in the course description??

I did some analysis – it was just going to get hotter and sunnier as the day broke, and the sun and me don’t get along. After the half way turn around, I would be running back INTO the sun and be re-conquering these mountains.

I should have picked the southern course, which was flat and would have had me running away from the sun as the day got older. Too late now.

Part of me contemplated just quitting – after all my gift to Chris was keeping him on track for training, not doing this damned race myself.

But I decided to tough it out.

Conventional training wisdom is to slow down and conserve your energy for the end. I opted instead to enjoy these best conditions while I could. Because as I faced the sun head on in another hour or so, I was going to be doomed anyway.

But the heat and hills were already getting me. I was running 20 seconds and then it was taking me up to 2 minutes for my heart rate to come down low enough that I felt comfortable with another run sprint.

But somehow, even only running 20 seconds every couple of minutes (instead of every minute like I did in training) – I kept a pace of 14’30” for the first 7 miles!

I don’t know how I did that. I must have been walking much faster than I’m used to, which would explain why my heart rate wasn’t recovering as quickly.

At 6.5 miles I reached the turn around point and now running directly into the blazing sun ball of death.

Not too soon after, the 6.5 hour pace group (which would be 3 hr 15 min for the half – near my goal) met up with me. They were doing a 15/30 interval, and I decided to join them. It was a nice steady almost relaxing pace, and it was great to not think about intervals for a bit.

I kept up with them for a couple of miles until the sun and heat took it out of me. I decided to watch them get ahead of me in the distance and go back to my own thing.

Which was now mostly walking, and running when my heart rate got low enough. Which was about 15-30 seconds every few minutes again. But this time, my pace ground to about 15’45”, which I kept for about 3 miles.

When I saw the 12 mile marker, I used all of my reserve energy and got the pace down again and managed to cross the finish line at 3 hours and 18 minutes – below my goal, and an overall pace of 15’03”.

Given the hills, the sun, the heat, lack of breeze, crowds and the course not being nearly as shady as I trained on – I’m pretty darn astounded with what I accomplished, and my strategy actually worked.

Six months ago I was able to run about zero miles.
2 months ago I could do about one..
.. and I just did 13.1!