How much harder is it to run a half-marathon?


I have six weeks left to prepare myself.


Once this article hits newsstands and cyberspace, there is no turning back. I will have to run the Long Island Half Marathon (13.1 miles) on Sunday, May 2. 


The furthest I have ever run is 9.5 miles. I did that last week on a treadmill. While watching others work out at the gym can be entertaining, it is always the same people. I would much rather be outside. The scenery changes more often.


But the treadmill is where my wife and co-runner, Miriam, and I end up because finding a good place to run on the hilly and highly trafficked North Shore has not been easy. She is also my manager, overseeing a diet of whole grains and lean protein. If it fuels my runs, great. I have tried straying, but I find, horror of horrors, I am slowly losing my taste for junk food.


Miriam expresses all the confidence in the world that I can finish the race. My mother seems concerned. So, I will write here, Mom, I promise I will make it in one piece.


I wish I knew how. I have a training program to follow, slowly boosting my mileage until I can run 13.1 miles. But 9.5 miles left me exhausted for three days, leaving me to wonder how to run the final 3.6 miles without running myself into the ground.


Two years ago I would never have completed the first 3.6 miles of a half-marathon. Then, the idea of running 13.1 miles had drifted off into the passing sands of time, along with my cardiovascular endurance.


Seven years ago, in graduate school, I had time for two-hour bicycle rides along the Missouri River and 7-mile runs through the University of Missouri campus. Those were the days.


But the reason people use the phrase, “those were the days” is because those days don’t last.


They ended when I took up the stresses of underemployment in New York City. Physical fitness tumbled down my priority list past activities hardly known for facilitating an active lifestyle.


I still ran, cycled and lifted weights. But the efforts, though well-intentioned, became more sporadic and less effective.


One afternoon two years ago while playing softball, I got winded running from first to third. That was embarrassing. I felt defeated, but was not going to give up.


To call March 2008 a “transition period” would be mild. I got engaged; Miriam, who was living in New York City while I resided on Shelter Island, changed jobs; and her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, which has been chased so far into remission that it has never dared peek its head out.


The one thing we thought we could control — the only thing, it seemed — was our health. We grabbed onto that with all we had, trying not to strangle it in the process.


It was frustrating because I could no longer do what I could before. So I chased it one painful mile at a time. By fall 2008, we entered the Susan G. Komen 5K race in Central Park to raise money for breast cancer research. A few weeks later we ran the Shelter Island 5K.


I started thinking, if running three miles felt good, how about four or five? I started feeling comfortable at five miles last May, the same time I started writing a series of previews for June’s Shelter Island 10K run.


Having run out of story ideas, I decided to write about running the course for the first time. I was shocked when I completed it. I had started running for the health benefits but it had become a competition. Can I run further and faster than I did yesterday, last week, seven years ago? At 33, it’s difficult to run faster than I did at 27. But I can run further. 


Maybe it is the curse of the sportswriter, wanting to be a good athlete but never excelling. I will never be a competitive runner, but I have finally found a sport I feel I’m good at. 


Whether I am good enough to run 13.1 miles, I don’t know. I hope to see Nassau Coliseum as I approach the finish line rather than watching a race official sweep my vomit off Wantagh Parkway. I will have to wait until the eve of my 34th birthday to find out, but at least I hit my mid-30s knowing I can run and run far. Whether I finish the race or not, that fact is good enough for me.