When I woke up on Saturday morning, it was rainy and cold. That was not really what I was expecting. Luckily, I had a bunch of other running gear packed because I was driving home, so I went and grabbed leggings and a long-sleeved t-shirt (it was actually the shirt that I got from the Detroit Turkey Trot). I've often heard that it is a good idea to take as much gear as you can just in case of such an emergency. Here is proof. Apart from my Walmart run to get a throw-away hat and mitts, I was then all set.
One piece of advice that I remember reading about marathon running was to make sure that you didn't do anything out of the ordinary or stupid leading up to the race. For instance, the day before a marathon is maybe not the time to explore new spicy foods. However, you'd be amazed how easy it is to almost fall into this trap. For instance, I considered getting some coffee. Not in a long time have I had coffee soon before a run, so that could have been kind of dumb. And yet, I came close (mind you, I was up early too, which might have had something to do with it). I think that part of why it is easy to do something out of the ordinary is that you are out of your routine. For instance, when I was doing long runs during training, I would basically roll out of bed and go. Having other factors makes it trickier.
At the start of the run, the conditions were pretty lousy. The rain kept up and was coming down pretty hard at times. Did not enjoy. I am really not a fan of cold rain. At one point, it was so bad that I had to take my glasses off since I couldn't see anything. Around mile 13, I went to the bathroom and noticed that my upper thighs were still freezing. This was many, many miles in to the run. Blech. However, eventually the rain cleared and it was merely overcast, which was good. Kiawah Island had lots of large, shady trees, but I would still rather have cold instead of hot. In fact, with the big houses and the trees, in some ways it reminded me of where I ran for training. I have to say that if you are the kind of person who wants crowds to push you along in a marathon, then maybe this is not your event. If you, like me, prefer quiet running by yourself, then this is a good marathon for you.
You know what Kiawah Island really doesn't have? Hills. Yay.
The first half I ran probably faster that I should have in an ideal world. I definitely had positive splits (which is to say that my mile splits at the start were faster than the ones at the finish). It is best to have either an even pace or negative splits. However, I made a decision around a quarter of the way through as I was freezing in the rain and not wearing glasses: I was not going to worry about performance in this marathon. I could save that instead for the next marathon. This one was just about finishing.
I had to use some weird motivators to keep going at points in order to reach this goal of finishing. For instance, every time I completed another 10%, I would remind myself that I was whatever percentage of the way through and that I never, ever had to run such a difficult race again if I didn't want. Also, I started thinking about the fact that this very well could be the most arduous physical challenge I would ever endure (at one point, I was adding a disclaimer to that about how childbirth would be harder, then remembered that you can get drugs to make childbirth easier). One of the funnier moments occurred at mile 26.1, when I was counting down to the end and thinking that this was no worse than a 2K erg test -- erg tests take place on the rowing machine when you do rowing and are basically like death. Then I thought to myself, 'No, this isn't as bad as an erg test.' Which should really tell you something about erg tests.
My time: I finished in 5:47. If you look at my official time on the site, it will say 5:49. I stopped the watch when I went to the bathroom (incidentally, there were bathrooms all over the course and lots of water/Gatorade stops, which was good). My top-secret time goal that I barely told anyone was 6 hours, so I am very pleased to have made it in under that time. Considering my training times in Florida, this was better than I expected. Slow, yes. But I knew that. I had set three goals for myself in advance of the event, progressing from 'easiest' to 'hardest':
1) Finish
2) Run the whole way
3) Finish in under 6 hours
And I did all three! So that was exciting. Also, had I stopped at the half, I would have set a personal best for that distance.
Other achievements include not hitting the wall. I was very careful to carb load for the days leading up to the race, including eating basically an entire marzipan Stollen:
Also, I had pasta (white flour pasta!) for dinner the night before. For the run, I took six sport bean packs. This may seem extreme, but my thinking was to have one every 4 miles. The last pack was at mile 24, so there were only 2.2 miles to go at this point, but I figured that probably I could use the extra oomph anyway. It seemed to work well: I didn't hit the wall and had enough energy to complete the race (also no cramping or anything). So yay. Also, I got to eat an entire German Stollen with marzipan. Life could be worse.
Immediately afterward, my feet were killing me, but other than stiffness, I was okay. This proves my theory that actually, I am well-built for running, just not for running fast. No major problems to report in the days following, apart from walking around like Frankenstein for a while. But that is to be expected. Also, I did a lot of driving, so that probably didn't speed up the recovery.
Here is a tip: if you run a marathon, make sure to have roomy shoes for afterward since your feet will be swollen and ouchy.
After finishing, I went back to the hotel, ate an entire large Papa John's pizza (because I could!) and watched all three Indiana Jones movies (the fourth one, in my view, just doesn't count). The Garmin informed me that I burned 2600 calories from the marathon alone.
What's next? For the next couple of weeks, I plan to do some swimming and skating, with a bit of running thrown in. I think that my next goal will be to do a 5K sometime in February to try and crack 30 minutes (my best to date was around 31 minutes, so this isn't totally unrealistic). Then maybe a half-marathon, we will see. Unlike a lot of people, I don't feel wholly against doing another marathon, but I want to think this decision over carefully. It is a lot of time and effort, even though I feel like it was worth it in the end. And I guess this also marks the end of this blog, since it was about me running a freaking marathon and now I have accomplished that goal.
