The race as I see it

I will try to make this quick.  It is race day synopsis.  A race weekend synopsis.  Not sure if anyone knows, but I ran a marathon this weekend.  I like to keep stuff like that tight to my chest.  Not discuss it too much.  We runners don't like to talk about doing marathons too much.  Anyway, yes, I did a marathon this weekend.  I had big plans for it.  I did all the training.  Reached some milestones in weight loss, muscle gain, mileage put in, etc.  I was ready.  I even bought compression socks.  I was going to the dance in my Sunday go to meeting clothes.  I was really ready...or so I thought. 

I think one of the things that keeps me grounded at times is the fact that I was an athlete in my younger days.  Played most of the sports.  Ran track.  I was pretty decent, I guess.  When I have bad running days, I think back to my days in high school and college and remind myself that every day can not be your best.  One day you may run a quarterback sneak for a touchdown and the next week you can be flat on your ass needing stitches in your head.  With this distance running stuff, I have mostly seen improvement.  Because I am still kind of new at it.  I space my races out now based on giving myself enough time to train so I can do them well.  I felt really good going into Sunday's marathon.  It knocked me on my ass.

I felt a little tight at the start, but figured things would loosen up rather quickly.  I even paced myself, which is hard for me to do.  I usually just go as my body feels, but I knew that I needed to keep myself at around 9 minute miles to not only get the time I wanted, but to actually finish.  Even though I never loosened up, by mile 9 I was keeping to about an 8:45 pace.  Then, everything really started tightening up.  I know that running isn't really supposed to be comfortable, but just last month I ran a really decent half marathon at a much faster pace and felt way better at the 9 or ten mile mark than a I did on Sunday.  And I still had 16 or 17 miles to go.  The weather was perfect, the music was great, the crowds were awesome, my heel didn't hurt much.  Nothing was hindering me except my legs just would not cooperate.  Around mile 13, I knew I was not going to reach my goal.  I could not pick up the pace.  That was discouraging, but I told myself that I could still get well under last year's time and that would be pretty nice too.  It was around this time that I had to stop to pee.  I never stop to go to the bathroom in a race, but I had to.  In the porta potty, I felt dizzy and wobbly.  I did not feel that way when I was running, just when I stopped.  I was a little concerned but not really.  I told myself to get out there and start running again.  I did not want to die in a porta potty.  If I was gonna die, it would be in front of a crowd where at least people could see my new socks.  The dizziness did not last but the tightness in my legs did.  I found that I had to walk more.  Run a lot, walk some.  I started to realize that if I did not pick it up, I would be lucky to get last year's time.  That was frustrating because you want to pick it up, but sometimes you just can't.  There are so many miles to go that the increased pace would just kill you and you won't even finish.  Or cramp up so badly that you just fall down in the street and roll around until and ambulance gets you.

Here is an aside about runners.  They know pain.  We are all in it.  Fast or slow.  Pr or no pr.  Running a marathon is painful.  I kept thinking that everyone out there was in pain and pushing through it.  It wasn't just me.  I started thinking about the people who really love to run.  Who love long distances and maybe were just having a grand old time.  If I saw any of those people, I wanted to kill them.  The cheering crowds started to annoy me.  I had miles to go before I slept and I thought I would never get to the finish line and I wanted to kill people.  I started trying to joke with the crowd a bit.  After getting a cup of Gatorade at a water stop, I offered it to some people who were cheering.  I'm like, "want some Gatorade?"  They just ignored me.  I saw a woman laying in the street with an EMT attending to her and she was talking about how great she was doing at mile 13.  That her pace was right on and she couldn't figure out what was going on.  That is the thing about runners and when they are near death.  They are still talking about their pace.  Runner's converstaion with God.  God, "Welcome to heaven."  Dead runner, "Thank you, but do you know I was right on pace for a pr.  If I just didn't die things woulda been perfect."  God, "Did you think about your family?"  Dead runner, "Who?  Have you seen my Garmin?"  But we digress.

At mile 20, I knew I would be lucky to finish.  I didn't even want to finish.  That is the funny thing about Facebook, though.  When everyone in the world knows you are doing a marathon, you have to finish or die.  I thought, how am I going to spin this quitting thing into a good story on Facebook?  I noticed how many people were walking.  Cramping up. Crying.  Limping.  All kinds of gear was strewn around.  People throwing off water bottles and shirts and gloves and stuff.  There were some pretty nice things I could have used.  I thought that I hate running.  I hate marathons.  I'm not built for this shit.  5k's are where it is at.  I could train for fast 5k's.  And lifting weights.  That is all hard stuff and I like it.  I hate marathons.  I got mad at my music.  I couldn't turn it down.  I was too tired to turn it down.  Then, I ripped the earbuds out of my ears.  Then the dangling earbuds annoyed me.  Some guy behind me was walking and then he started running again and he simply said, "ouch".  That made me laugh, because that summed everything up really well.  Ouch is right. 

I finally got to the finish line and got some food and limped over to where my friends were.  The finish line and seeing your friends is the great eye opener in all this running crap.  You see the people you trained with.  You hear how they did.  They understand the pain we are all in.  They understand the frustration or joy of the race.  Seeing them and thinking about the process we all go through to get to the finish is line is what keeps me doing this.  I'm not happy with my time, but I'm happy that I finished.  I had nothing left.  I gave it my all and that had to be enough for that day.     

My footfalls make me puke

I had a couple thoughts this morning and figured I would write them down.  So here goes.  Less than two weeks from the marathon.  I'm getting a bit freaked out.  Wondering if I did enough.  Or too much.  Or whether I should even be doing this.  I'm a sprinter, for God's sake.  Not a marathonist!  An old and ancient sprinter, but a sprinter none the less.  I  may write a book, How to Get From 100 Yards to 26.2 Miles In 30 Plus Years - One Man's Journey Into Hell is what I may call it.  Maybe I won't call it anything because I grew bored of it all during the writing of the title.  Another reason I will never write a book.  I don't have the attention span to do it.  Or the talent.  In addition, if it takes me 30 years to write the book, I will be dead anyway.  I do not want to be dead and famous.  I want to be alive, rich and famous.  Not that I have much of an ego, but I do like going to the MAC machine and knowing there is money there.  Rich to me is being able to use my debit card at a store without feeling the terror of whether or not the screen will come up "declined!"  I was at Wawa the other day with a line behind me and my card wouldn't swipe.  I knew there was money in the account but the card wouldn't work.  I'm like, "there is money there, try again."  I knew the people behind me were like, "yeah right, asshole, just skulk away and let us have our coffee.  There ain't no money in there and you know it."  Because that is what I think when someone's card doesn't work.  Fortunately for me, it did finally work.  I was three shades of red and the cashier gave me a fist pump when I left.  The cashier gave me a fist pump!!!  Because my card worked.  It was like I crossed the line at a marathon.  I won.  I had money and I had yogurt.  It is the simple things is life.  Which brings us back to the marathon.

I decided to get some compression socks.  I've been having plantar fasciitius issues(not going back to spell that correctly because I don't want to, and I'm not sure I know how, btw), and some calf cramping.  So, I thought the socks may help tighten everything up.  Keep it all together.  My problem is I am not a gear guy.  I wear compression shorts because I have chafing issues.  That is about it.  Compression shorts covered by running shorts.  I don't wear tight shorts because I really don't want people to see the parts of me which tend to chafe.  So, I bought some compression socks and I know that I'm going to look funny.  My friends are going to laugh.  I am so stuck in the '70's that it is hard for me to wear any kind of gear.  It reminds me of when I was young and we would play pick up football and there would always be one kid who showed up in full gear.  No one wanted to be that kid.  Now, I'm going to be that kid who shows up at the marathon with knee high compression socks and look really out of place.  Even though many people wear this stuff and look fine.  I hope the socks help with some of the stuff I am dealing with.  I can picture being annoyed with them half way through the marathon and trying to rip them off while I am running.  I really just want to cross the finish line and get to the delicious pierogies that Steamtown has.  Can't wait to see that picture.  Me with one sock around my head and the other dangling behind me and a pierogie sticking out of my mouth.  I love marathons. 

Here is the other thing.  I have written about this before.  Some runners get so bent out of shape about other runners listening to music.  I saw on the Runner's World site the other day, people were going off about it again.  Who cares if someone listens to music?  I don't care that you don't listen to music.  I don't care if you do listen to music.  If I were in the Olympics or a competitive track meet, I would not listen to music.  I can run with or without it.  I prefer with music.  Oh...so you need to listen to your breathing and your footfalls and concentrate on your pace?!  Well, fuck you!!  I can do all that and listen to music.  I forgot my ipod for the Philly Half a few weeks ago and I concentrated on my breathing and holy crap!!  That was so boring.  I breathed like one billion and thirty times.  I counted every breath.  Do you know that when you think too much about your breathing that you actually stop breathing?  Yes...it is true.  I stopped breathing for a half mile and it almost killed me.  So, thank you people who told me not to listen to music.  I almost died.  I can listen to music and think of all kinds of things when I run.  I is not like I'm concentrating on the lyrics or the music in general.  It is just there.  It helps me enjoy the whole running experience that much more.  Mostly, I don't care what other people do or wear or how they run.  I just like seeing them out there doing it. 

So, anyway.  Less than two weeks to the marathon.