As of a year and a half ago, July 2008, I had never run farther than 8 miles, nor did I want to, but my primary form of exercise was running and I was looking for folks with which to run. As it turns out, I happened to pick a group of overachievers, and all 25+ were marathoners, triathletes, or ironmen and women.
Peer Pressure: Not wanting to be the underachiever of the bunch, I signed myself up for the Houston Marathon slated for January 2009. Training went well. Saturday mornings were always a bit too early for my taste, but better to get up early than to run 18 miles by myself! Now if you would have asked me about this choice prior to joining this group, I would have laughed at the thought of setting my alarm for 3:30 and 4 o'clock in the morning on my day off to run. And I would have laughed harder at the thought of me running more than 10 miles, ever. But I succumbed and ended up following the training program to the letter and felt good about the upcoming event.
Race Weekend: My mom and sister flew in for support, and we attended all the prerace functions. I was a bit grouchy the night before, as Mom can attest to, but was ready to go that next morning. Unfortunately, I did not have a thought out plan for hydration or fuel or pace. I am pretty sure I covered all the rookie mistakes. Instead of staying with the pacer, I took off ahead of him. This was very bad, especially considering I warm up slowly and have to ease into my race pace! So, I'm moving right along and felt some trouble at mile 12 when my tiny 6 oz bottle of gatorade seemed too heavy to hold. The wise thing would have been to stop and chug it! However, this genius just chucked it in the trash. Well, in one more mile that would come back to haunt me as I started getting cramps in my feet. This never happened in training! What was going on??? I kept at it, but found those conversing and having fun, really annoying. And then about mile 16 I saw all the joy for this event flow right out my pores, and be replaced by misery in the form of deforming muscles. They say that your mind is key to getting through a tough event, but when your muscles won't stop screaming at you, it's hard to hear your head. In any event, my muscles converted my head into chanting a loser mantra. It progressively got worse as the miles wore on, and cramps were occurring in muscles I didn't know I had. At mile 20, I was saying goodbye to all my nice friends in my running group. At mile 23, I said goodbye to running completely, and then it seemed like a good idea to give up all physical activity. Oh what joy being a couch potato would be!!
One of my friends passed me looking very healthy and chipper, and was kind enough to offer me some GU. Had my head not been in cohoots with my muscles, it would've determined how wise it would've been to take the GU. However, at this point, the conspiracy was made against any good choices for the rest of this run, and I declined the offer. My legs kept trying to find a way off the course, but my head kept saying that my ride home was at mile 26.2 and I might as well walk in that direction versus getting lost and left to perish off the course. This may very well be the only reason I finished this race. I need to send Mom and Sis a thank you note for standing at the finish line! When I did pass them at mile 26, I tried to smile, for which appeared to them to be crying. May very well have been as I wasn't in control of my head anymore anyway.
The finish: When exactly were the endorphins suppose to kick in?? Um, did I miss the runner's high?? Is it a bad sign when the medical people want to pull you in to check you out right away?? Never the less, just not having to run anymore made me elated! I would've given away everything I own just to not have to run anymore.
The Coaches Perspective:Well, one of the first things my coach asked me was whether I took water or gatorade at every stop. "Every stop???" I said. Who knew! Then he asked about my pace. Uh, now the conversation about negative splits is coming back to me. Darn my head for getting so distracted! Well what with all this great information about how the run could've gone much better, I'd have to give it another try... I can safely say the endorphins had kicked in when I made this decision!
In the upcoming articles I will be mostly sharing some of my more interesting training runs, in various cities throughout the U.S. I will share improvements as well as challenges in next 3 marathons and some of my mental (and physical) hurdles along the way.
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