Saturday, October 15, 2011

Alan's Marathon Blog Post, Part 4

I realize that I haven’t really said much about the actual running up till now, but there really isn’t that much to say.  I don’t think it could have gone better for me for my first marathon.  I held my starting pace for about the first 6 miles or so, and I didn’t slow too badly throughout.  I ended with a 13:09 pace for the whole race, and I’ll certainly take that.  At the 20 mile mark I was 36 minutes faster than when I had done my 20 mile training run a few weeks earlier.  And like I said, I never had to walk, except for a few hills that I had planned on walking anyway and I didn’t walk at all until sometime after mile 12.  There was no “wall,” at least for me in this race (I imagine I’ll find out all about that someday, though).  It started to hurt some after 15 miles, mostly in my hips, and the last six were even tougher.  I wasn’t running all that fast over the last few miles, but I was running, and I never felt like I couldn’t go any further.  I finished in 5:44:13 (net time—it took me almost 2 minutes to get to the starting line after the gun went off).  I said going in that I would be happy with anything under 6 hours, and this was well below that.  808th out of 945.  I’ll take it.

The race started out as a giant mass of people (around 3,000 or so) but for me it got lonelier and lonelier as the day went on.  Going out from the starting line and around Back Cove in Portland, I could look ahead and see runners stretched out almost all the way around the cove.  It was pretty neat to watch.  And just little while later crossing the Martin Point Bridge, again it was crowded with runners.  Not too much further on I started seeing runners on the return leg of the half marathon, so it got even busier.  But around mile 6.5 I passed the half marathon turn around and things got pretty quiet.  Eventually I started seeing the returning marathoners and it picked up again for awhile, but when I turned into the loop at the far end of the course at mile 12, that was it.  It was just the few runners who were at around my pace.  Some would pass me.  I would pass some.  Sometimes we would move back and forth like that a few times.  But I think most of us were alone in our own little personal races from then on as we crossed the halfway point and started the long haul back to the finish.  As I entered Back Cove again on the way back some 3 hours later, it struck me just how deserted it was.  There were a couple of girls cheering runners on at the last turn onto the cove, and one last water station that was just a table covered with cups of water and a woman beginning to pack things up.  I could see a couple of runners maybe a quarter mile or so ahead, and that was it.  No other runners.  No crowds.  It was kind of peaceful, actually.  Still, I was glad to see Nancy coming up the other way to meet me.  I took off my headphones and listened as she chatted and I talked a little, but mostly I didn’t have the energy so I just enjoyed the company over the last mile.



Crossing that finish line felt great.  Getting that medal put around my neck was one of the more satisfying moments I’ve ever had.  




In the back of my mind over the years I had always thought that it would be great to be able to run a marathon someday, but since I never stuck with running for long periods of time it was never a concrete goal, just a “wow, that would be cool” kind of thought.  Back when I was in college I had this one night on the track in the field house where I was up to 8 miles and feeling pretty good.  I figured I’d go for 10, which would have been the longest I had ever run.  And then they closed the building for the night and kicked me out.  I never got back to that distance and 10 miles was the goal I had for a long, long time.  It was over 20 years before I hit that goal last year, and now here I am having finished my first marathon. 

Is it a little sick that I was looking up stuff about the Sugarloaf Marathon (May of 2012) the next day?  I made need to seek help.

Some post race notes:
·         I mentioned that the weather bothered me the most before the race started.  That’s not entirely true.  I think it was worse after I finished.  Running kept me nice and warm for the most part but I started shivering almost the moment I stopped.  The space blanket was nice, but the wind kept whipping it out behind me like a cape, which seriously undermined its effectiveness (even if it looked cool—in my head at least).   




    As painful as running a marathon can be, it’s absolutely nothing compared to the day after.  By the next night it was all I could do to stand up out of a chair, and going down stairs was a whole new experience in pain.  As I write this, 3 days after the race, I’m starting to feel something like normal.  A little stiff, but I actually did a couple of miles on the track today and it didn’t feel too bad.

·         While I did notice the crowd a lot more than I usually do, I still didn’t really pay a heck of a lot of attention to the signs people had.  There was one that I heard about after the fact that I really liked, though.  It said, “Because 26.3 miles would just be crazy.”  That sums it all up for me.

·         There were a few signs that I did notice, though.  It was great to come through the door back at home that evening to cheering kids and signs that said, “Yay!” and, “Woo Hoo!” and “You did it!” and, “Now go take a nap.”  The kids didn’t come along for this one.  Spending 6 hours in the cold and rain would have been too much, both for them and for Nancy.  Her head might have exploded.  But they were there in spirit.  








1 comment:

  1. We love reading about your marathon experiences! Congratulations! It sounds like you had a great time.

    ReplyDelete