My First Marathon: Mixed Feelings

It looks like the excitement about the OKC Memorial Marathon that motivated me for months also ended up being my "downfall." Saturday night, I lay in bed in my hotel room, and I tossed and turned and thought and strategized and worried and wondered...for hours. I was able to doze off into very light, restless sleep after quite a while, only to wake up again at around 3:00. I dozed off again, this time into a little more restful sleep, and woke up to the alarm at 4:30. My roommate got up to take a shower. I slept until 5:00 when my phone alarm went off. In all, I got less than 4 hours of sleep. I woke up to the realization that I would be running longer that day than I had slept that night.

We went downstairs and ate some breakfast. Actually, we grabbed our breakfast and ate it while power-walking 10 blocks or so to the starting line. I was feeling horrible already.

I slipped into the line with the 4 hour pace group. My plan was to start with them, and then fade back as necessary. After lengthy pre-run proceedings, the horn went off, and my first marathon had begun.

I was feeling good, going out at a moderate rate. Nothing strenuous at all. I noticed that a few miles in, I was sweating profusely. The sweat was dripping off the back of my shorts onto my legs. That seemed unusual. But otherwise, I was still feeling good.

It was at about mile 7 that things changed. Suddenly, I was completely drained. It was strange to me how weak I felt and how discouraged I was. Throughout my training, I was usually able to run around 15 miles without feeling notably stretched. Now I realized that the time of feeling stretched had arrived, and I was going to have a tough 19 miles, much of which was uphill and against the wind. I was a little heartbroken.

About 13.1 miles in, I started noticing a pain in my groin on the right side. It wasn't a cramp. I had apparently lightly strained the muscle. In order to keep from pulling it, I stopped once I realized that the discomfort was not going away. At that point, I started walking through water stops.

Seems like the turn at Hefner Lake came around mile 15 or 16. The wind I had been wishing for previously was now a pretty decent detriment. The news said to expect 20-25 MPH winds Sunday morning. I believe they were pretty accurate, as the gusts were sometimes so hard, it felt as though I could have leaned on them and remained upright. At this point, I saw TATUR Dave. I yelled out to him with a pretty weak voice. I was surprised he heard. He was there with another from the Runner's World group. It was good to see familiar, friendly, encouraging faces. Dave's words from a few weeks back were going through my mind at that point: "You will want to quit..." He was right. But the thought that was implied in Dave's comment was "...but don't." I'm so glad I didn't

As we started the slow uphill ascent starting at about mile 20, I was feeling completely, unbelievably weak. I was trying to stay positive. I kept reassuring myself, but I was to the point to where I wasn't sure if I was running or walking more. I kept thinking about my training, and how 16 miles was relatively easy, how 18 miles was a little bit of a surprise, and how 22 was tough, but do-able, and how I felt like I could have gone ahead and run an additional 4.2 miles that day without too much trouble. I didn't understand how, in all of my training, I had never walked (unless it was to stick with my running group), and now, I was having to force myself to run even a sliver of each mile.

At mile 23, I had what I suppose was a cramp that started at the front inside of my left leg, and extended back to the left side of my glute. It was kind of the last straw, and if a medic had come by in a cart and offered me a ride, I'm not sure what I would have done! But the spectators were great, as was the race crew--very encouraging the entire time, even toward a hobbling participant like me.

I hit mile 25, and I couldn't believe that I was one-point-something miles away. My remaining mileage was in the ones! I knew I was going to have to save some strength in order to be able to run across the finish line. I walked a pretty decent section of that mile into the 26th mile. Then, I turned the corner and saw a glorious sight: the finish line. I was about 4 blocks from it. I walked two of the blocks, and then dredged up my last bit of strength to push me to the finish line at a slow run...a mere 53 seconds away from beating 5 hours. Again, disappointed, but glad to be done, and glad to have my first marathon under my belt.

I shared with my wife on the way home that one ray of hope was that at no time during the race did I ever think to myself, "I never want to do this again." On the contrary, I was contemplating my Wednesday run this week, my next training schedule, and my next marathon, all the way through the race.

Next on the list: the Tulsa Run and the Route 66 Full Marathon.

4-26-09
Distance: 26.2 miles
Time: 5:00:52