Back to the Beginning: Hamptons Half Marathon

I’m running the Hamptons Half Marathon in Southampton tomorrow. It’s sort of a return to the beginning for me.

Prior to running it for the first time in 2010, I had actually run the New York City full marathon twice. But the Hamptons was the first time I ran a race with Team in Training. And it’s where, thanks to the kick-ass coaches of Team in Training, I learned the proper way to train for a long-distance race without doing something stupid or hurting myself.

2010 was a hell of year.

I got divorced. Saw my first novel published. The Saints won the Super Bowl. And, halfway through the training season, I met Cara while in home in Louisiana. (The day of the race was also the day of that crazy LSU-Tennessee game that LSU lost at the closing whistle, but then won after a penalty restarted the game.)

And, of course, for that first Hamptons race, I also raised a money to help fight leukemia and lymphoma. (If you haven’t donated all your money to hurricane relief efforts, consider donating to my effort here!)

With the exception of last year, I’ve been running one race a year with Team in Training since then.

I did Hamptons a few more years. Cara even did it one year, the first year she started running marathons. This year it will be different for a couple of reasons. One, I’m no longer running with Ad Age (because I no longer work there). Two, the course was moved from the north shore of the South Fork to Southampton proper. So it’ll basically be a new race for me.

The Hamptons half isn’t my official Team in Training race this year. I’m actually doing the Marine Corp Marathon next month. But I wanted a late season half that didn’t conflict with other training and this worked out. (Southampton is also where I went to college and delivered pizza and became a writer and got my first newspaper jobs and lost my virginity and all sorts of other great things.)

So I’ll be dragging ass out of bed at 4:30 on a Saturday morning and riding out there with Rahmin, a friend and former Ad Age co-worker and someone who was on that Team in Training team my first year. He’s actually running the full marathon tomorrow. I’m not quite ready for that jelly.