Marathon Madness

As usual – sorry it took me so long to write this. I made up for it in length, though.

My marathon experience actually began about a week prior to the event. Our training runs had been carefully planned out, culminating in a 20 mile run scheduled three weeks before the race date. After this run, our longest practice mileage, we began what is known as “tapering”. Tapering means that after pushing ourselves and working harder than ever, we were now expected to ease up and slack off. Believe me, it sounds easier than it is. For weeks we had be running and training, building our mileage. Now we were under strict orders to ease up and our Saturday runs became much shorter. We went from 20 miles one Saturday to 10 the next, and then only 6 miles the weekend before the race. Trust me, when you’ve run 20 miles, six feels like a walk in the park. The end result is that we all ended up with tons of extra energy that we were supposed to try and conserve.

So, the week before the race, we had our final practice – six miles. It was almost a tearful event, as this would be our last official training run. After months of meeting up every single Saturday, we now faced the final days of what had become so much a part of our lives. During the days that followed, we all tried to get to bed early, drink lots of water, and only run a few miles twice a week. The tension was building and my little group (the 4-1 interval group, otherwise known as the 4-1’s) shot off multiple emails daily in our attempt to coordinate ourselves for the morning of the race.

Unfortunately for me, by Thursday of the week before the race, I began to get that dreaded feeling in the back of my throat that heralded the coming of a Cold. Desperate to avoid getting sick, I took extra care to get plenty of sleep. On Friday, I left work early (which was good, since I couldn’t really concentrate anyway), met up with Dad, and we went together to get our race packets. The Alamodome was filled with participants and vendors, and excitement was thick in the air. The next morning, I met up with my group at the Tower of the Americas for a short, inspirational run featuring Team in Training participants from all over the country. Still, I felt myself becoming more and more congested, so I skipped the team meeting and pasta party (it’s traditional and highly recommended to load up on carbohydrates the night before a marathon) and rested in bed as much as possible. I’m grateful that my family was so supportive and didn’t give me a hard time for lounging all day.

That night, before bed, I put on all my race day clothing. Our coaches suggested we get completely dressed and pin on our race number the night before. This would ensure that we didn’t forget any vital bits of equipment. We had been warned that on race day morning, it’s not unusual for folks to have the mental capacity of a two-year old. I laid out all my clothes, set my alarm, and tried desperately to go to sleep.

Just as the weather forecasters had predicted, it was chilly the next morning as Dad, Aaron and I all drug ourselves out of bed. Actually, I didn’t really drag myself out of bed; I sort of leaped up and somehow managed to get dressed all at once. After chowing down on brown rice and loading Aaron’s new bike into the car, we headed out to meet up with the other 4-1 folks. Aaron was to be our Marathon Support Vehicle and was prepared with Vaseline (for chaffing), snacks, extra Gu (like the name suggests, this is a goo which is primarily brown rice syrup, and is one of the primary fuels for long distance runners), and who knows what else I saddled him with. His directive involved parking the car downtown and biking all over creation so he could magically appear when needed.

As agreed, the 4-1 group (and my dad) met at Carla’s apartment, piled ourselves into the back of Marisela’s Expedition, and were chauffered by her husband to the start line. We were all bundled up against the cold and comparing notes regarding what we had eaten for breakfast. The general consensus was that we couldn’t believe that the day had finally arrived; we were about to run a marathon!

The San Antonio Rock and Roll marathon was such a hit that registration was finally capped at 30,000 participants. Of those who registered, about 28,000 showed. In order to avoid a crushing stampede, the organizers created starting corrals for participants based on their projected finish times. Our 4-1 group had all ended up in Corral 18, which we quickly located and waited impatiently for the race to begin. Each group was brought up to the start line about 2 minutes apart from each other, so we actually began the race about 20 minutes after the official start. The way they deal with how this affects your race time is to use computer chips which we put on our shoelaces. As we pass various parts of the course, we run over sensors laid across the road, and this way we can know our real finish time instead of just going by what the race clock says. This is referred to as “chip timing”.

Another interesting bit of trivia involves clothing. The temperature was really quite cold that morning. Several participants from Canada expressed their confusion – they were under the impression that Texas would be a warm place to race! So how does a runner stay warm without worrying about overheating once the race begins? Goodwill. Like Marisela did, you go shopping at Goodwill, buy some cheap warm-up pants and a jacket, then toss them aside once they are no longer needed. As such, once we began running, we quickly realized that the first two or three miles of the race would also be like running an obstacle course. We leaped over gloves, coats, pants, hats, and so on. I had ditched my cheap sweat pants before we even began, and, true to form, Aaron magically appeared behind the Alamo (mile 2) and I was able to tear off my jacket (which I wanted to keep) and I was able to give it to him.

Unfortunately, thus began our shortl comedy of errors. As I tore of my jacket, I tore my race number. It dangled and bounced as I ran on, irritating me beyond measure. We weren’t due for a walk break for another three minutes, so I thought I’d just try and re-attach it while I ran. This is not easy to do when you are wearing large cotton gloves. As I snapped the safety pin shut, quite proud of my moving accomplishment, I went to drop my hands by my side and realized that I had safety pinned my glove to my shirt. Needless to say, this is not a comfortable way to run. As we approached our walk break, I managed to fix it, but no sooner had I finished than Marisela tripped over something in the street and fell to her knees. I remember being horrified, thinking that there was no way I could finish this thing without my running buddy, and we were only at mile 3! Fortunately, she was scrapped up but not seriously injured and we were able to push on.

The crowds were amazing as we ran. They cheered, held out signs, offered us free beer, and gave us all their energy. I can clearly remember thinking at mile 10 that this was awesome and I couldn’t believe we had already run 10 miles. I said to my friends, “remind me of what I just said when we hit mile 20!” We ran together just as we had on many a dark Saturday morning, encouraging each other, reveling in the moment and our accomplishment as the miles flew by. At the point where the half-marathoners separated from the full marathoners, we all patted ourselves on the back and ran on. And on. And on. And on. The crowds thinned and our muscles began to tire. By mile 16 our little group had become somewhat separated. Marisela, Carla, and I stuck together though, running and walking, running and walking.

Our conversation dwindled and we focused more on just running. As I had done in our 20 mile training run, I talked to Carla and invited her into my Happy Place. Some time ago we had joked about each of us having a role: Marisela kept us on course, Carla was the cute one (no matter how tired she was, she never showed it), and I distracted people. Whatever mental strategy I was using, I’d talk about it aloud. Once, I had said I was going to my Happy Place and Carla said she couldn’t find hers. I replied that mine was big enough for everyone. So, there we were, all helping each other, running past an airport, the missions, past signs that read, “Run like the ice cream truck is going 60mph”, or “You are all Kenyans!”, and my favorite, “The pain is temporary, but finishing lasts forever”. There was even a sign that read, “I envy you.”

Unfortunately, your mind beings to waver a bit when you get fatigued, and Marisela and I somehow lost Carla around mile 18 or so. I think we began running a little faster than her and didn’t notice because we were too tired to look around us. Marisela and I had long ago discovered that we could match each other’s pace perfectly, so it was very natural for us to run together in unison.

At mile 19, Aaron found us again, minus a pedal. He had apparently had an encounter with a lawn chair, and the bike pedal lost. Nevertheless, he persevered and stayed with me from that point on. I was getting pretty tired. When I had done my two 20 mile runs in the past, I was tired by this point, too, but I think I lost my focus this time. I knew that, unlike in the training runs, I didn’t have only 1 more mile to go; I had 6. A whole hour more. My head was getting fuzzy and I tried hard not to panic. Marisela and I ran past a couple of other women from Team in Training. These ladies had obviously done this before (they were still smiling). As a way to encourage us, they shared their secret strategy: a chant – “My feet are fast, my legs are strong, I can do this all day long”. I think that managed to get me another five minutes before it was too much work to repeat it to myself over and over again.

At mile 22, I realized that I never even saw mile 21 – I guess I lost it somewhere. By mile 23, my stomach was starting to feel upset and I was forced to stop before my walk break. Marisela did her best to encourage me on, but I was feeling too sick to continue at that point and I began walking. My three goals for this race were: finish, don’t get hurt, and don’t throw up. Vomiting was not in my game plan, so Aaron and I walked until I felt better. The last three miles were slow and at times I’m not sure that my pace qualified as “running” but I didn’t really care at that point. My poor husband…I wanted him with me but I kept telling him to stop talking to me. It was just more than I could handle. Marisela had gone on, at my insistence, and Carla was somewhere behind me. I found out later that Marisela never stopped again to walk – she discovered that it was less painful to just keep going; and Carla was found by a Canadian Team in Training coach we had chatted with earlier in the race. He overheard me worrying about her to Aaron, ran back, found her, and ran with her the rest of the way.

So on I ran, trying to smile when I saw a camera…getting passed by an older gentleman who was race-walking…groaning when I realized what was waiting for me as I entered the last mile. For a reason completely unknown to all 28,000+ participants, the race organizers plotted a course that ended in a hill. If I ever thought running up hill was hard, that was before I had to run up one after running 25.5 miles. I started walking up it, but the spectators were so encouraging along the way that I finally forced myself to begin trotting again. All I wanted to was to cross the finish line, which was unseen around the corner. My feet hurt. My thighs felt like lead. My whole body wanted to be done. As I finally turned the corner, the finish line was only steps away and I passed under the cameras, not even bothering to try for a “I finished!” pose. Someone put a medal into my hand, I turned to find Aaron, and burst in to tears. After years of never thinking of myself as athletic, I had just run a marathon. There is no doubt in my mind that if Aaron hadn’t been there, I would have just toppled over.

Finally, I moved on, hobbling, dazed, and looking for lost friends. After some time, we reunited, took a few photos, tried to eat (though most of us could only choke down some oranges or smoothies), and started the trek to the car. Dad and I stopped along to way to get a combined total of 40 pounds of ice so we could soak in an ice bath. We both limped and glowed for the rest of the day and I met up with my friends the following morning so we could all share our stories and bask in our coolness. At lunch that day, several of us started talking out how we needed to start planning some get-togethers so we could train for the Austin ½ marathon in February and Marisela and I began to plot a way to run another Marathon in Seattle (in June).

So, that’s the marathon story in all its glory. Call me crazy, dedicated, or hooked; your choice, but there you have it.