I ran my first half marathon last night, although that probably isn’t right because it implies it was an organised event, really I just went for a really long evening run. Although there were lots of people at the start waiting for a big sporting event and some runners on the way, that was just because the State or Origin was on and there are always people along the Brisbane river. I got some funny looks as I walked past the Origin fans on my why home, I guess you look like a strange mixture of dishevelled and elated after that distance, or maybe it was because my running shirt was a blue colour.

So, the important details: I ran 22kms in just under two hours, so my half marathon time was about 1:56. I’m chuffed at running it under two hours! Awesome! I’m really proud of myself for running such a distance, heck, I’m still proud of myself for running at all having been overweight most of my life.

So no recipe today, except for telling you what I ate to recover, below.

Maybe you’re wondering why I just ran that distance by myself, rather than in an event. Really it’s because the hardest coach is in my head, plus I really don’t like crowds or expensive entry fees. I’m not really sure where the sadistic voice in my head came from, it certainly wasn’t there in high school sport classes, but the voice sure is a hard task master these days. So despite the blister for the last 6kms and my joints starting to get a bit stiff, I just kept going.

Most of the run was really enjoyable. It was a nice cool evening, probably about 15 degrees, and the sky was clear. It was nice and quiet down by the river, other than really dedicated runners, most people were at the pub or home waiting for the game to start. I felt good most of the way, other than the occasional complaining ankle and most kilometre splits were between 5:30 and 5:45, plus a few faster ones.

I’m feeling pretty good this morning, the knees and ankles are a bit sore, reminding me I hadn’t actually trained for the run and probably didn’t quite have the strength around my joints. But then again, they complain some mornings for no reason at all.

After the run, I revived myself with water, Gatorade and a delicious bowl of oatmeal that was packed with protein and carbs for recovery. I made cinnamon raisin oatmeal, sweetened with honey, plus some yoghurt, a banana, peanut butter and chia seeds.

I hope that this encourages people that they can achieve a lot more than they probably think they can with time and a bit of dedication. I couldn’t run 1 kilometre at the beginning of 2009, actually if you gave me a 20kg bag of potatoes now I couldn’t run 1 kilometre with it, so it’s not surprising I couldn’t run then, but the point is I wouldn’t have even imagined I could run a half marathon and now it wasn’t even particularly hard.