Somehow I’m able to type right now considering ever single inch of my body hurts…which means I have finally ran my first marathon!! Looking back, I have no idea how I did it, but feel so amazing that it is official. All I wanted to do was finish and run the whole thing…and somehow I did that all under my lofty goal of 4 hours. It still doesn’t seem real, here’s the hard-hitting story:
The bus loaded up at 4:00 am…a time I almost missed because I had set my alarm for the wrong day (awesome work and off to a super start!). Thankfully I didn’t sleep really at all, so that didn’t matter. I woke up for the billionth time at about 3:00 am and thought to myself, okay, I have about 25 minutes before I need to get up. I laid around and laid around and finally started feeling like it had been about that long. I looked at my clock and it was 3:35 – I set my alarm for the day before! So I rushed off to take my pre race shower, put on all my clothes, gather all my things and rush out the door.
We then drove up the canyon for about a decade. The entire time I kept thinking “It sure is a long drive up here…and we are going way faster than I run – how the hell long is this race? It has to be more than 26 miles!” and also “if this bus keeps swerving like this I’m going to throw up before this thing even starts” and “what in the world made me sign up and PAY for this nonsense!” We finally got to the starting area and my dreams had come true because there were port-o-lets as far as the eye could see. I’ve never seen such a beautiful site! Thankfully I was able to handle everything pre-race so miraculously had no other issues (of this type) during the run. As I stared at all the hard-core runners getting ready, I started panicking – I was wearing a thousand layers and standing off to the side like I was at a junior high dance. All the other people (the “popular kids”) were wearing minimal clothing, yucking it up with one another and just having a rip-roaring time. Not only that, but they were all running up and down parts of the mountain!! What?!? I’m sure there is some running reason why they were doing that, but I was in too much of a panic mode to even move one inch…and was also trying to conserve every droplet of energy I had. I strolled up to the starting lane with my heart beating out of my chest trying to decide if I wanted to hop in the bag drop car and just ride back in…..
Before I could make that decision, the gun went off!!! I quickly realized my toes were still numb from the cold – I wondered how in the world I was going to do this with my feet being blocks of ice. Thankfully, after a few miles they started warming up…not sure if it was the movement or because I watched someone’s butt crack in front of me for the first 3 miles – either way the numbness wore off and I carried on. I was feeling pretty good for the first 13, but it started to get a little tougher each mile after that. No matter how much training I had done, nothing prepared me for what the second half of this race was going to do to me mentally and physically.
By the time we were out of the canyon at mile 17 I was ready to sit down, start pouting and wait for the race marshal to come and pick me up along with the Gu Trash and ex-carded clothing. But then, thankfully I saw my amazing hubby at that moment and just seeing his face gave me a second wind. He jogged next to me for a little bit giving me tons of encouragement and telling me he would see me again at 19. I thought okay, great, I can get to 19…but seconds after he left my side, I was straight back into to ‘woe is me’ mode.
After going up a decent hill in the wind, I reached 19 and saw him again…this time I was much less cheery – I smiled, but not the annoying, cheesy, toothy grin that I usual plaster my face with. The knee issues I’d been having for the last month or so were really starting to bother me. Every strike of my foot sent pain up and down my entire leg. And my opposite foot that had also been bothering was screaming. The race pretty much stopped being fun at about this point. I’m not going to pretend that it was awesome and I just told myself “you can do it!” – it was terrible. I was hurt and miserable and tired and hungry and wishing the rapture or an alien ship would come…or that the Mayan calendar was wrong and today was actually the last day on earth. It was not pretty.
But, I somehow pushed through the next 2 miles where I would see my hubs again – this time I wasn’t even talking though. I had traveled back to the time of cavemen and was communicating in a series of grunts and huffs. I was Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, because I couldn’t feel my legs – they were clearly moving as if independent from my body. I grunted hello to him, he ran with me again and then told me my awesome neighbor had driven the hour up north to run the last five miles of the race with me. Quick sidebar: Who does that? I mean, I can’t even comprehend how awesome someone has to be to leave their family for a series of hours on a weekend day to come and run a part of a marathon with someone who is so incoherent they can’t even speak with you…and you don’t get a medal….or the free t-shirt…or the quarter bagel at the end. What an awesome guy and friend – I can’t believe he did that, I’m always going to be grateful to him – I don’t think I would have made it without him.
Anyway, with a series of Brittany Spears, Eminem, Jay-Z, Nicky Minaj and Lonely Island (that is not a typo) songs blasting through my ear drums, I was able to muster up enough strength to go the final 5.2 miles. My awesome neighbor peeled off right at 26 and the finish line was finally in my site. I always see people finishing these races with some sort of sprint at the end. My mind was telling my body to do that, but I had absolutely nothing left in my tank. In my brain I was Usain Bolt, in reality I was a slug moving so slow I was almost going backwards. But I trudged through that final .2 miles feeling like I had just won the gold at the Olympics. I spotted my hubby, who had snuck into the finishing area, and got a final burst of energy and crossed the line falling right into his arms. I almost knocked him over because I couldn’t stand on my own anymore. My legs were jelly and I was flopping all over the place. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t even have any tears left in me. Ever single ounce of energy I had was used up. But I got my awesome medal and strolled to the finishers area and devoured a zillion orange slices (yay youth soccer!) like I was some rabid starving beast.
And now here I am the next day, barely able to move, but loving every bit of the pain because it reminds me of the awesome feat I was able to accomplish. I could not have done it without my neighbor or my training partners, but I definitely couldn’t have done it without my husband. He was so amazing. He drove all over that city to find me and tell me how strong I was and encourage me that I could finish it. Just seeing his face made the pain go away (for a brief second) and reminded me I had someone who believed in me, and I knew I didn’t want to let him down. He was also texting other family and friends the whole time so they were up to date on my happenings (and grunts). There are a million reasons he is the best husband in existence, but yesterday he definitely added to the extraordinarily long list…
Finally, I’ve complained on here about gaining weight during training and I look in the mirror every day and notice a new section of cellulite or see that muffin top that never goes away. I feel like I see a thousand things that are wrong. Today I looked in the mirror and all those things were still there – but I realized that this body, while full of imperfections, carried me through 26.2 miles in under four hours. That is incredible. Instead of cursing all the things that are wrong, I need to remember this day and be thankful for being given this vehicle through which I can accomplish amazing things. It’s hard to overcome years of self-confidence issues, but I hope this is the start of seeing my body in a new and more positive light. I’m pretty damned lucky that I was able to run this marathon and extremely lucky I am healthy and strong enough to do it.
If you made it through this whole post, congrats, it was long and only funny to me! 🙂 And, if you are on the fence about running a marathon – get out there and do it. Being able to say, “Yeah, I’ve run a marathon before” feels pretty damned awesome!!!
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