First I admitted my ambition. Then I talked about donations. Now, the marathon is almost 3 weeks behind me and I suppose it's time I spoke about how it went. So here's the skinny.
First, and most important, I raised just over $800 for the Lasallian Volunteers! My goal was $1000, and I'm still hoping to reach it. If you are willing to help me, please check out the instructions in this older blog post. If you already donated, THANK YOU!, and be expecting a little something from me in the mail soon. Now, for the run itself.
Friday, December 3, Mike, Denny, and I landed in Memphis, TN where we met the other 47 or so participating volunteers, plus probably another 30 LV alumni, not to mention a whole community of Christian Brothers. PAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTYYYYYY!!!! Ok, maybe we didn't party that much, but don't blame us for that, we had to run a marathon the next day. We spent Friday afternoon wandering Memphis a little bit, hydrating, and enjoying a pasta dinner/carbo-loading session courtesy of the Bro's at Christian Brother's University. It was an early night for most, with an air of nervous excitement permeating our dreams as we psyched ourselves up for our respective races.
Saturday, December 4, the 5k runners got up a little earlier than everybody else because they had to be on the start line for a 7:15AM gun. The big business (aka the half-marathon and the full-marathon) started at 8:00. I was especially nervous as I headed out to the start for several reasons. First, I HAD NEVER EVER EVER RUN A MARATHON BEFORE! Even though I trained for months before the race, even though I'd done the long runs, even though my training had culminated in a 20 miler, I still wasn't sure I could do it. This fear was made much worse by reason number two: the week before the marathon I found that a muscle on the outside of my right thigh had gone past the point of mere soreness that had been irritating me for several weeks and instead progressed to actual pain. What was wrong with it? Would I be able to finish? The third reason I was so nervous as I approached the starting line: time corrals. There are runners at the start who have shirts and signs that say what time they will be running the marathon in. If you want to run a 5 hour race, stand by the guy with the 5 hour sign on his back. Well, I wasn't sure what my time should be. In my training I had planned for 10 minute miles, a 04h22m marathon. But then I found out how much faster some people go, some not terribly fit, not particularly well-trained people, and I thought to myself, "well, shouldn't I be able to go that fast, at least?" So, I decided to have my trepidations meet my expectations in the middle, at the 04h05m mark. A pre-race run to the porta-john and I was ready to go. I guess.
As the race began, I was pacing with 2 other LVs, Christine and Gosia. Things were going well for me until about mile 3. Then that silly muscle started to hurt, right at the point where it inserts on the outside of the knee (by the way, I have since found out what that is, it's called the ilio-tibial band, and the issue is apparently that it rubs on the femur slightly and can become tendinous if overused). Well, I kept running, just kind of powering through the mild pain, for another 5 miles or so. But then it really started to hurt, so I stopped to stretch it. That was a MISTAKE. It still hurt when I stopped and the stretching did nothing, the first couple steps back on the course were 100x worse than before I had stopped. Nonetheless, I decided to catch up to Gosia (Christine had dropped behind) so I picked up the pace a bit to close the distance. The weird thing: as soon as I accelerated the pain went away completely. I didn't feel it at all. But when I caught up to Gosia and slowed down again, the pain was back. Obvious solution? Go fast for the whole race. So I did. Kind of.
I picked up my pace around mile 8.5 and kept it up for about 10 miles. I passed hundreds of people, including the half-marathoners (who run on the same course), and felt great. But eventually my stamina ran out. Around mile 18 or 19 I just couldn't keep that speed. I had to slow down. And as soon as I did the pain was back. But now I only had a few miles left, I couldn't quit. So I just kept running. It was, in a word, terrible. My muscles all over hurt, that stupid IT Band was excruciating, I was out of energy, and only mental determination kept me going. From mile 19ish to mile 23ish was miserable. People on the sidelines would say as I ran by that I "make it look easy" or that I am "doing great." Bullsh*t. Complete and utter lies. The look of pain on my face, the uncoordinated stumbling I was doing as I went, surely gave away the struggle I was going through inside. But I kept running.
By mile 23, every mile felt like 4. I remember passing the mile 23 mark and thinking it should have been 24. Had I somehow gotten lost and gone in a loop? I was sure I had passed 23 already. But apparently not. What felt like half an hour later I passed 24. Shouldn't that have been 25? I tricked myself into continuing by believing in between mile markers that I had gone farther than I had. Finishing the race seemed so much more realistic when I thought it was not as far as it really was. It's like being on a long hike and always believing the end is just at the top of the hill. There's always another hill, but somehow you can keep going when you think there's only one. And so I kept running because I kept lying to myself.
When I got to mile 25, even lying to myself was almost not enough. I became so exhausted at one point in mile 25 that I stopped. Just for a second, but it was enough. My next step was excruciating. My IT Band was screaming at me to just sit down and do nothing. let them carry me off the course, it wouldn't matter. but I couldn't. I had trained so hard, had worked myself up so much for this race, that I couldn't stop. When would I ever run another? What would I tell the people who had donated to this effort? It just didn't seem like an option. So I kept going.
Mile 26 came with a blessing. A couple came up on me and offered a couple words of encouragement. They were local, so they pointed out where we were going. The stadium was in sight. I didn't want to lose them, so I picked up my pace enough to stay with them. We chatted and we ran. It was not a distraction from the pain, but it was a reason to ignore it. They were funny, too. As we were running, a man walking the other way on the course said (I don't know why people insist on saying this) "Yeah! You guys make it look easy." Well, I was fed up with it. "You're a damn liar!" I called back to him. The woman said to me, "don't worry, we know him. I'll hit him for that later."
The couple stayed with me to just a couple hundred yards short of the finish, then there was the single hardest moment on the entire course. You are going up a small hill (but even small hills seem huge after 26.1 miles) and there is a U-turn. Literally, you have to do a complete 180 degrees, running uphill, on a pivot. You have to break stride and turn. It was perhaps the most exhausting moment I can remember. There was a group of LV's just above that point who had done the half-marathon and the 5k. They were cheering for me as I came by. But it was just after that turn, and I simply couldn't muster a response. I wanted to. I really wanted to give them high-5s, or to call back, or to do something to acknowledge them, but i couldn't. That turn, less than 200 yards before the end, was as much as I could take. All I could focus on after that was moving forward. it took all my mental strength to continue. The hill finishes and there is a left turn into the stadium, then a left turn down the 1st base line (you come in through the outfield) and most people seemed to speed up just then. They wanted to finish strong. I wanted to finish strong, too, but just finishing was all I had the might for.
About 3 steps after the finish I bent down and put my hands on my knees to rest. i let my head just hang. A woman came up and put a finisher's medal around my neck, handed me a space blanket, and said "Do you need medical help?" That's how terrible I looked, I guess. When someone is asking if you need a doctor, you can't be looking too good. I think I managed to muster a "no," grabbed a couple bottles of water, then walked out onto the grass and stopped moving. I laid down and stayed down for 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes, I don't even know. I started to get chilly after a while so I moved into the sun, then I continued my motionless state in the Memphis sunshine for another hour, at least. Other LV marathoners finished and joined me. I think I looked the worst of anybody. Ricky still had the energy to jog other people in as they finished. I couldn't even muster the will to stand. But I finished.
Eventually the lure of free post-race food and drink motivated me to stand. I took the stairs up the stadium one at a time. I moved slowly to the bag check and got my stuff, put my pants on over my shorts, and shuffled my way to the food tent. I ate the best pizza of my life (I think it was Dominoes, and it was cold, but I loved it), then headed down Beale Street to find the other LVs. We spent a little time there then headed back to CBU for a delicious BBQ dinner.
Let me tell you a bit about this dinner. One of the sororities at CBU found out we were there and cooked us some authentic southern BBQ. They started roasting the pork early that morning and roasted it all day. It was served with baked beans, amazing cole slaw, and mashed potatoes. I'm not a huge fan of BBQ, but if it tasted like that all the time, I definitely would be. Additionally, one of the LV alums local to Memphis managed to acquire a keg of Ghost River Brewing Company (Memphis local) beer to go with the dinner. The evening tasted delectable.
On the morning of Sunday, December 5th, there were a couple sore heads and some late sleepers, but most everybody was in good condition to travel, and many planes home were caught. Denny, Mike, and I had stressful connecting flights both going and coming, but luckily (I guess) Delta never departs on time, so we managed to make them. I was exhausted, and still having some very real trouble with stairs, but Monday was back to work, so back to work it was.
My recovery has been going pretty well, though as you might suspect about a person such as myself, I have definitely pushed my IT band too far, too fast. My job pretty much requires basketball in the day to day, and I also took kids on a 7 mile hike this week, so I've put myself back a bit, but I feel better daily nonetheless, so I hope to be fully fit again soon. I have some other things I would like to write about from work lately, but this post is certainly long enough already, so I am going to let them wait for my next update. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. As always, please feel free to post comments or send me an email.
Alex
PS> The stats on my finish - Overall place, 367/2427. Place in age group, 15/76. 6.2 mile mark-57m51s; 9m20s pace. 13.1 mile mark-01h56m04s; 8m52s pace. 20 mile mark-02h52m07s; 8m37s pace. finish line-03h49m34s; 8m46s pace.
