Several awesome things happened on Sunday, January 18. I got to run a marathon with a friend, teammate, co-worker and a talented runner (Laura – and she smoked me by over an hour!) I also got to meet up & hang out with someone I’ve been inspired by through Twitter & his blog, James from @liveyourpassion. I also got to do something really cool; post to Twitter & Facebook while I was running (via Jott on iPhone) and give 26 shout-outs to friends & family who sponsored my fund raising efforts for Team Tillman. Last but not least I was honored to run for Team Tillman in honor of Pat Tillman, a great American who made a choice of The USA over the NFL and gave all for his country.
This was also my first marathon that I’d run with Newton Running Shoes – I chose the Motis Trainers. Aside from the cool parts of my day that I mentioned above, the Newtons were a bright shining star. I’m not a real “marathon veteran” as I’ve only done (4) so far. I do know that in the previous 3, my dogs were barking afterward. It was great to finish and my feet actually feel pretty fresh, and not beaten to heck after about 40,000 steps. Seriously, a huge thumbs-up to my Newtons, A+ and I’m looking forward to all my races with these things on my feet!
The Yang to my Yin is that every good comes with the bad, right? There was plenty of bad to be had on my part! Ain’t no excuses to be found here – my POOR training was to blame for my horrible results. I’m not going to get into time, and it is still a fresh wound, but let’s say it was over an hour worse than I planned. My mileage had fallen off sharply since my taper for the Las Vegas marathon that I chose to forgo at the beginning of January. I realized how bad my mileage was: I’d only done 1 run of 14 miles, a handful of 8-10′s and a smattering of 4-6 milers over the final 5 weeks leading up to PF Chang’s Rock ‘n Roll Marathon on Jan 19, ’09. What I had been doing is eating right, a lot of body weight (pull up, push up, sit up) exercising and I am actually the most “fit” I have ever been in my life. That false sense of comfort led to the incorrect thinking that mileage was unnecessary. I figured I’d run the distance a few times before – how hard could it be?
The end result isn’t hard for any runner to figure out – I fell apart once I got outside of my training zone. My first 10-12 miles were awesome, my body felt perfect and Laura and I clipped off easy sub-9′s. Around mile 11 we dropped it to a sub-8 without any more perceived effort and were well ahead of the 4:00 pace group. I felt so good that I figured a quick restroom break wouldn’t mess things up… and that was where it all went South. There’s no need to complain about the cramps I had for the next 12+ miles, it suffices to say my legs fell apart. (I’m still missing a few pieces, if anyone finds a chunk of my gastrocnemius muscle on Indian School Road please FedEx it to me.) Seriously, it was REALLY early in a marathon to start going to hell and I needed to pull it together to finish…
So, I didn’t “pull it together”, but I managed to MacGyver some legs out of rubber bands and chewing gum to make it to mile 25. Interestingly enough, once I hit that mark I was able to “run” the rest of the way in. While some may call it a “gutsy” performance, I think it was very foolish of me to take the marathon distance so lightly. I will never fail to respect the tale of Philippedes again.
Overall the best part of the day was the loud wake up call that I received through undue pain. I learned that I can finish no matter how bad it gets and I set my new “high water mark” that I will never go over. 2 days later and my legs are almost back to “normal”, tomorrow I’ll get back to running and training for running RAGNAR Relay as an ULTRA Team! (that’s another story to come soon!)
Found your muscle wandering the desert, looking for perote tablets – was small and shriveled – was muttering “please stop the pain”.
Well, in that case, glad ‘my’ mile was an early one.
Keep it going. Even half a country away and an hour late, you’re still an inspiration.