Monday, October 09, 2006

Marathon Story

The Short Version

Wow. Helluva thing to do a marathon. Painful and glorious and every emotion in between.

The Long Version

I’m going to go into hairy details here about the experience. Most of them sound pretty awful and make you say to yourself, “no sane human would do this to himself/herself.” This is indeed a question I asked myself a few times during the course. But overall, I’m incredibly glad I did it. Not sure I’d do it again, but it’s something I’m happy to have done. There is *nothing* like the feeling of crossing the finish line.

But anyway, the stuff I’m about to describe sounds pretty gnarly, but don’t let it dissuade you if you are thinking about a marathon. I’m just being honest.

The official start time for the St. George Marathon was 6:45 AM. Which means buses loaded with eager beaver runners began trundling toward the start line at a smidgen before 4 AM. Yes, not only do you have to run 26.2 miles, but you basically have to get up the evening before so you can start the thing. That’s almost the most painful part, having to get up a four in the A.M.

The start of a marathon is a marvelous thing, really. Whole lot of skinny people (present company excepted, of course, I’m still kind of deliciously lumpy), huddling around bonfires and waiting in line to use porta-pottys. And the lovely thing about the porta-pottys is that after waiting in line (in the cold, more on the cold in a sec), you find a significant lack of toilet paper. And let me tell you, when you carbo-load with oatmeal at 4 AM, my friends, you need T.P. pretty seriously. Ick.

So about the cold. St. George, UT is down in the southwestern corner of Utah and it’s the desert down there. Which means brutally hot summers and chilly winters, since there’s no atmosphere to hold the heat in overnight. In St. George at this time of year at 5:30 A.M. it’s about 38° F. A bit nippy to be wearing shorts and a synthetic tee-shirt, but there we all were. Though my group had brought and distributed Hefty bags, which had the dual bonus of slightly warding off the wind AND making me look even more ridiculous. Bad craziness. Just picture me essentially half naked and wearing a garbage bag. Yeah, not pretty, I know.

The race started promptly at 6:45 and we all began to shuffle toward the paddock leading us out onto the road. I believe this is probably how cattle feel when being led to the slaughter. All crowded together, confused, excited and not really sure about the immediate future.

“Fool In The Rain” by Led Zeppelin was playing on my iPod Shuffle as I crossed the start line and hit the “go” button on my watch timer gee-gaw. Somehow an appropriately titled song for this extravaganza. There’s a full moon and it’s dipping in and out from behind the mountains and it’s all incredibly gorgeous and exciting and breath-taking. “Holy crap! I’m starting a marathon. How cool is this?! And look at the moon! It’s purty!”

The first six miles were nothing. Seriously. I didn’t even notice that I was running. I forced myself to take walk breaks, because I knew I’d need the energy later in the race. People passed me and I passed them and all was well. At about 7 miles we passed through this “blink and you’ll miss it” town called Veyo and we trudged up the first hill in the race. It’s a doozy and perhaps the worst part of it is that you can see it looming in distance from about mile 5. This uphill section lasts until about mile 11. I walked up the really steep part. I was still feeling really good. I’d take my walk breaks and be glancing at my watch, anticipating and chomping at the bit so I COULD START RUNNING AGAIN!

Boy was that dumb.

Everything was going along swimmingly until about mile 18. The halfway point totally rocked as my iPod played “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” by Smashing Pumpkins as I dunked a cup of water on my head. I was getting tired, of course, and no longer looking forward to getting back to running after my walk breaks, but still I was doing OK. More like having my eyes glued to my watch so I’d know to the second when I could take a walk break, but I knew by that I’d be finishing, maybe even breaking five hours.

Until the cramping began. Around 18.5 miles things began to fall apart. This is a pretty common thing among first time marathoners, I hear. People speak of “The Wall” at mile 18. I’m not sure it’s a wall so much as it’s a big ol’ charley horse in my left leg, just above the knee. Ouch. I’d stop and rub it out and try stretching it out, but it just kept coming back. And when I’d try to stretch it out, my left hamstring would go bananas and start to clench up. Double ouch. So I began to hobble something fierce.

And at mile 21, my right knee began acting up. I’d been having some pain on the side of that knee earlier at around mile 15, but nothing that seemed un-reasonable. Just the usual aches that accompany a long run. But every step (even walking) after mile 21 began to feel like torture. I was in some serious pain. Technically speaking, it was my I.T. band (Iliotibial band) begging for mercy, but who really cares about the details? So I’d run for a few minutes and then have to stop, bend over and rub my knees until the knots went down and the pain subsided. Not pretty, let me tell you. Plus, it just *killed* my time. I was still on track to finish below five hours (not a great time, but not bad for a first-timer), but all the stopping, rubbing and stretching was eating into that possibility.

So I was Sir Gimps-a-Lot until about a half a mile from the end. And then this guy pulls up behind me and starts talking to me. Asking me if this was my first marathon and how I was doing. By this time, I could see the balloons of the finish line and he starts telling me, “See! It’s right there! You can make it! We can drag that leg to the finish! No one can take that away from you! You did it!”

While all of the was true, it was also bugging the hell out of me. I said, “OK, you are just going to have to stop talking now.” I know I was pretty rude, but I needed to concentrate.

He kept at it, so finally, I just said, “Screw it,” and began to run as fast my gimpy-ness could carry me. I was about a half hour slower than I wanted to be, but I sure as hell was going to beat Mr. Motivational Speaker beside me. I caught up and passed two other people and crossed the finish line and started to weep uncontrollably. Seriously. Bawled like a baby. Reha and the kidlets were right at the finish line and she caught a really nice photo of me as I crossed the line.

That guy beside me with the sunglasses was the Team in Training Coach, Troy. He ran everybody in, so I think he ended up doing about twenty miles that day. Bad craziness, but he does ultra-marathons and is kind of crazy anyway, so it worked for him, I guess.

You can’t tell from the photo, but I forgot to douse myself in sunscreen, so I’m burned to a crisp.

OK, the upshot of all this? Running a marathon for most people is one of those Big List type things. Like, “I want to learn to speak Mandarin and climb Mt. Everest” kind of things. I’m glad I did it and pretty much swear that I’ll never do another one. Maybe I’ll do a half next year. But now I have this nagging voice in the back of my head now. “You could have done better. You can definitely break 5 hours. You could even get below 4:30, I bet. Don’t be a pansy. Let’s do it again!”

But that’s a voice I’m not going to listen to for a while. For now I’m content to have this small piece of hardware added to my life. My official chip time was 5:34:08.

And I know I promised photos of my toe blisters, but I’ve thought better of it. The world and the Intarweb will be better places if those photos aren’t brought to the light of day.

1. YAY YOU!

   Yeah, I’m stickin’ with my measley 5K, thanks.  The closest I’m ever gonna come to masochism is that time I paid someone good money to rip all the hair out of my legs.  Who on earth thought that idea up?

   Of course now I know why you get misty thinking about 10k’s now… Piece o’ cake after that. 

   Congrats, buddy.  Looking forward to hearing about the next one :D

   Posted by Elizabeth  on  10/18/06  at  04:27 PM

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.

Holy Crap! Look at all this STUFF down here. It's awesome!

 

Really, I'm glad you made it down here. Almost no one ever comes down here. I'm like in a freaking dungeon down here. I get lonely. But not you. YOU made it all the way to the end of the page. For this I think I've a little crush on you. I don't know, is "love" to strong a word to use in this situation? Well, if it's not "love," then it's very strong "like." I'm totally in like with you for coming down here. You are awesome. Please love me back! I know, I know, I shouldn't be all needy, it's not attractive at all, but you don't know how it is to be stuck down here. Who scrolls all the way to the end of a page anymore these days? Anyway, thanks for shedding some light down here in the depths. I appreciate it. Shoot me an email and I'll send you a dollar, OK?

©2005-2010 Jon B. Deal All Rights Reserved. All comments belong to the respective commenters.