It’s been a minute. Life was being life — time split between work, half-marathon training, trying to be a present dad and fiancé, and still carving out time to read like a maniac. I bit off a lot, but the two biggest checkboxes of 2025 are now ticked: I finished the half-marathon and broke 200 books for the year.
Race Day – December 6th
- Goal A: Sub-3:00 → accomplished
- Goal B: 2:40 → missed by 7 minutes
- Final time: 2:47:06 (12:38/mi pace)
For context, the only other time that I did this was in October – 2:53 (13:13 pace), so this was a solid leap forward even if it didn’t feel pretty at the end. I hit my main target being under 3:00, my nice to have would of been 2:40.
The morning was beautiful, getting into the event and warming up I felt good. Not just in body but in mind it felt like this is exactly where I needed to be and what I needed to be doing. The work of the previous 18 weeks was about to be put into use.
Miles 1–9 felt great. I took my first gel around 48 minutes (mile 4ish) and found a comfortable rhythm. Got into a great space and just was moving, counting breaths in four exhales four inhales and was locked into a meditative state. I found that race day pace that I had been practicing.
Then mile 10 happened. Pace started to drop off, felt drained. I hit a wall going into mile 11 I was doing more walking than running. The next couple miles were the same, I was mentally bargaining with myself to just keep moving forward. I felt flushed, drained and had to push.
Mile 12 was the low point — until a police officer working traffic control said, “Three more lights and a left” Something about his energy flipped a switch. I ran through those lights, made the final turn and got hit by this wave of emotion – saw Annemarie and the kids screaming on the sidewalk holding up signs cheering me on!
That moment, was such a great feeling. I am glad I get to relive that moment by capturing it on video. Also sharing that with my family was so amazing. The emotion that I felt in that moment, all that training and living what I preach to the kids. Settings goals, and achieving them. It is so hard to put into words how I felt, but proud, accomplished, happy. I will always cherish that moment, such a big win.
At the same time I also felt ready, to improve, to continue pushing what I can do. Immediately I was breaking down the race and saying what I needed to improve and finally said no enjoy this moment there will be time later to Analyze. It is now later.
Two Big Lessons
- Endurance & Fueling
- I crashed hard after mile 10. Even with prioritizing hydration days leading up with salt/lemon water, the day of had a banana for breakfast. By this point I had also consumed 2 gels and added the 3rd around mile 12ish.
- There is much to improve here and to see what gets me better results in this 10+ mile range
- Aerobic Fitness / Heart Rate
- The entire race was ran between Zones 4/5, legit ran a half-marathon with my heart at full throttle.
- Easy-runs need to be the focus to reduce my heart rate and to help with the endurance issue as well
What’s Next on the Running Front
A week now after the race and taking things into consideration I am going to pivot now into Ultra marathon training. I found a 50k event (31 miles) on 04/25/26. That gives the next 19 weeks to train. With the lessons learned from this race, and the training and miles that I am about to put myself through its going to be a challenge. It is going to be really difficult, and time was an issue before so finding that balance is going to be critical to achieve this.
This is shooting for the stars I think, but I need to have something to work towards it could be something smaller but after a ton of thought this is what I want to train for. That to me is the most important thing, what do I think that I should be doing and what do I want to be doing. That is important I think in goal setting is to be realistic but to also push yourself a little bit.
Reading Goal: 202 / 200 ✓
As of writing this I have broken the 200 goal (202 at this moment). Another thing that was a lofty I thought goal, not that long ago I wrote the post back in Oct about breaking 100 (Check out that post here) but the goal even from then got pushed from 150 to 200.
I found this year a love for audiobooks. These were something that have challenged me previous and I stopped many many times. Now I enjoy it, doing the chores around the house – audiobooks is a game changer.
The reading list was vast – fiction to self-improvement to biographies and memoirs and everything in between. I am even dabbling in a specific page just related to reading updates – lists, reviews, and seeing where that goes. Check me out on Instagram if you are interested @Buck.Reads
I have read so many good books this year, and something I love is stories. The whole reason I wanted to launch the Blog is to share my stories with other people.
Turning the Page (Literally and Figuratively)
That brings me to why I started this blog in the first place: to chronicle the adventure of life. This can be anything in life, but it is the stories that make up the adventure through life. I am looking forward to continue to create new adventures and push myself to create new stories.
You don’t need perfect conditions. You need discipline when motivation takes the days off. Everything else will follow, as we are chasing the goal the process becomes everything.
Two quotes I will leave off with:
“One of the worst things possible is to follow the rule “Be like everyone else, follow the crowd” – Leo Tolstoy
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born… and the day you find out why.” – Mark Twain
Find your why!
-Chris Buck
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