26.2

On Sunday, September 25, 2005, I accomplished what has, to date, almost certainly been the hardest thing (physically) that I've ever done.  I completed my first marathon.  When you consider that on December 17, 2003 I suffered my first (and hopefully last) heart attack, weighing in at 320 pounds, it becomes pretty remarkable.  Not in an egotistical way (if that's possible)...but there are some accomplishments in life to savor, and the last two years of health and fitness seem to be one of them.

Anyway, we started at 7:00 AM at the Boulder Backroads Marathon - shortly before, we were led up with a bagpipe processional, and we started on time.  The weather was perfect - mid 40's to about 50 degrees, completely overcast, and maybe a little misty.  I wore my running shoes, shorts, a short sleeve shirt, and "sock arms" (an idea from our coach, who suggested using long tube socks that one can easily discard as it warmed up outside).  The weather never really warmed up (until after I was finished with the race), but I discarded the socks around mile 2.  I regretted doing that at mile 10 when my hands were so cold I couldn't open my energy gels.

Also, keep in mind that this is a VERY hilly run, with lots of up and down hill areas, and a total of nearly 500' in elevation gain.  There are hills all over the course, even at the end.  This was no personal record course (unless you are me, and you've never run one before).  With that in mind, my strategy was to start off slowly, run 11.5 min. miles, and run 10 minutes, walk 1 minute, run 10, walk 1.  This is how we trained, and is generally a pretty well recognized way to do things.

First half of the race went great.  Felt good, and ran with good time...kept my pacing in the 11 1/2 minute per mile range, except on a couple of steeper downhills, where i took the chance to pick up some time, and started doing 8 minute miles - with little extra energy expended.

At mile 15, I stopped temporarily at the aid station, as a fellow group member (who was not running this race) was kind enough to leave some gatoraid in a cooler for me (the accelerade made me a little sick when I tried it before the race, so I stuck with what I was comfortable with).  When its cold outside and I run a really long distance, if I don't wear gloves or have any way to warm my hands, they start to lose their ability to grip things.  I can move the fingers (mostly), but I can't actually grip anything with muscular strength.  So when I took out my water bottles and the gatoraid that was left for me, I couldn't open the caps for either, and eventually had to have someone at the aid station help me out.  Sad, huh?  At that point, I also lost the group member that I was pacing with.

Mile 17.5, the wheels started coming off my form.  I could feel my body start to slow down, my legs getting VERY heavy.

Mile 17.5 to 20 my walk breaks were longer.  At 20, I caught up briefly with my fellow group member again on a very steep hill that she was having problems with.  At 22, my stomach started bothering me and cramping...which was nice...it matched my legs and gave me a whole body feeling of cramping, rather than merely just partial.  Nice.  Needless to say, 22 to 24.5 were tough.

At 24.5, one of the people from our training group (who was not running this race, but volunteering to help at an aid station for our training group at 25) spotted me and guided me up the hill to our group aid station, which gave me a bit of energy, and through the aid station I got some loud cheers, which helped me along.  At 25.7, I was spotted by another group member who had just run Philly the last weekend, and he jumped on to run with me and give me encouragement to the finishers gates, which is where he left me off, and then the finishers gates (which was really long!) carried me to the end.

Total time: 5 hours, 35 minutes.  Not going to win any records or awards.

But when you consider (A) where I've been (with the heart attack and weight), and (B) the number of people in this country who have finished a marathon, and then damn, that's a pretty amazing accomplishment to me!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to walk normally again.

Comments

[Jenny]

That's awesome! Be proud - you ran a marathon, no qualifiers needed.