End of the Beginning

When marathon day came, I was relatively calm, knowing that it was quite likely I would not be able to finish the race. The place where I lived was a long the marathon course at about mile 7 or 8, so I knew I could drop out at that point if my ankle was bothering me too much to continue. Before the race began I took 4 Tylenol, and brought several with me in the key pocket of my shorts. The weather was unseasonably warm--in the upper 60's/low 70's at 8 am when the race started. (By the end it was in the low 80's and sunny) The beginning of the race went better than I could have expected. I concentrated on keeping my stride even, since my first run on my sprained ankle made my knee and hip sore, as my body attempted to ease the burden on the ankle. I knew if I was going to run the marathon, I needed to force myself into a even stride. I succeeded at this for the first 8 or 9 miles, where I averaged about 10 minutes per mile. By the time I reached mile 8, I knew I could finish the race. My ankle was bothering me somewhat, but not nearly as much as it had just a couple days earlier, and I was far enough ahead of the sweep bus that I knew I could slow down later if I had to.

I had to. By mile 12 I started a a pattern of running and walking, and after about mile 14, the heat was pounding down and my ankle was not doing very well. One thing I hadn't thought about when spraining my ankle was the affect that 2 weeks of practically no training would have on my fitness. My cardio had deteriorated a bit since I wasn't able to train properly--that combined with the heat, and my ankle made it difficult to fun at all. After about mile 15, I walked. I had actually practiced walking on the treadmill after my injury, both for rehab, and because I knew if I was going to finish the marathon I'd have to resort to walking at least some of it. After I began walking the miles passed excruciatingly slow. I was far enough ahead of the sweep bus that I knew I could finish the race, but my time would be horrible. Somewhere around mile 17, a guy had a garden hose propped up to shower hot runners. I went under it foolishly, and the water seeped trhough m shorts and completely soaked my shoes and socks. As I walked on my feet began to hurt, forcing me to stop, untie them and rearrange the insoles. It helped some but the discomfort soon returned; I knew I didn't have time to stop again if I was going to finish so I went on. The miles got progressively worse on my feet, and my legs were also feeling quite sore by this point. While walking is easier than running, the muscle use is a bit different, and I wasn't used to walking so many miles at a brisk pace. By this point, I had almost completely forgotten about my ankle injury. I dug in and hobbled my way to the 25 and a half mile mark. With the finish line in sight, I popped some more Tylenol, and brought myself to back to a run for the first time in over 10 miles, and kept on all the way to th finish. I felt kind of silly being a young fit guy at the back of the race surrounded by older runners, and people clearly less athletic and fit than I was, but I knew it was somewhat absurd for me to even try running the race with my injured ankle, much less finish. My final time was around 5 hours and 55 minutes--just under the 6 hour limit for official finishers, but I wasn't worried about the time. I finished!

In the aftermath of the race, I realized my wet feet had developed severe blisters, which combined with my soreness, essentially made me unable to walk for 2 or 3 days. It took almost a month for the blisters to subside, and my ankle continued to bother me. When I began training for the race, like so many other marathoners, I considered it a one time shot: I'd complete one marathon then hang up my hat, and tick the task of my list of things to do during life. After the marathon however, I remained frustrated that I was unable to actually run the whole race. I wanted the race to be enjoyable, not exrcuciating. This made me begin training for the marathon the next year. When the next marathon came, I hadn't trained as much as I had for the first one, but I had more experience, and I wasn't injured. I didn't have any expectations for the race, I just wanted to finish a lot faster than the last time, and run for the whole race instead of walking so much. I started out the race well at about a 9 minute mile clip, but it began raining at around mile 3, and continued through mile 12 or 13. Considering my problems with wet feet during my first marathon, (and several other experiences during training runs) The rain made me slow down and become more cautious about my feet. Luckily, I had learned a thing or two about running shoes and socks, and was wearing a pair of Features socks which did a good job of drying ot my feet even though at one point the rain reached a down poar. I finished the first 13.1 in about 2 hours and 3 minutes, but due fatigue and worry about blisters, I slowed considerably during the second half to finish in 4 hours and 35 minutes overall. While this was a huge improvement over my first run, I knew it was not the best I could have done. I wasn't even that tired after the race, and I finished the final mile in under 9 minutes. I was disappointed that I allowed myself to slacken the pace during the middle miles, but glad that I had managed to run the whole race (except for walking to take drinks/gels/etc). That was the 2008 Twin Cities Marathon, which essentially takes us up to today. Since that race, in observing that I wasn't that tired, and my joints and feet came out unscathed, I realized I could have run faster. So I made that my next goal: to run the 2009 Twin Cities, but this time, do it in under 4 hours.