It’s funny to think about how I felt about marathons before running one. I’m going to talk about that before I talk about this marathon in particular.
I trained under the idea that I was running to compete in this marathon. Each weekend had a specific distance and speed and time. Sometimes I left Rachel and Susan behind because I thought that going slower than that goal would hurt my time and training. I also thought that I wouldn’t do another one. The training was “fun”, but it was a lot of work, time, and stress due to all of my travel. If you would have asked me at 18 miles if I’d run another one, I would have said probably not.
But, when all was said and done, I met Joe at the finish line and it just HIT ME why people subject themselves to this type of pain. I can’t even begin to describe how great it felt to finish 4 months of training - it would take up too much bandwidth and the internet would break.
I hope that everyone tries this terrible “sport” at least once, but I must say, it is as only as fun as the company you keep!
I hate kodakgallery.com and I hope it dies in a fire. Just give me the original jpg you stupid website.
Now, for my marathon story… poo and all. It’s kind of long and it’s more for my memory than for your entertainment so have fun with it.
I got up around 5 and had a shower. I drank some coffee and tried to poo but no poo would come. This is important to note. I left a little late and drove down to where we were SUPPOSED to park in record time (I still don’t know how I went 25 miles in 20 minutes but I think it involves breaking the speed limit in a couple of choice locations). I had a power bar on the way. The road was so backed up leading to Autzen Stadium, I said screw it, I’ll park at the start and get a ride back afterwards. I drove over to campus, but I didn’t know how to get to the start, so I called Micah and asked him how to park close enough to walk.
After dealing with the parking situation, I walked over to the start line. I took 3 advil. I felt that I was late, so I skipped saying hello to Joe, but in reality I had almost a half an hour. Oh well! There were people everywhere. I was lost and I couldn’t find anyone. Would I have to start alone? Would I have to run the whole thing alone? Gosh that’d suck. Where is everybody?! Then I hear Micah calling to me. What the heck, isn’t he supposed to be asleep? Jesus! He points everyone out to me and then we huddle around like nervous little pigs waiting for the slaughter. Blah blah blah, long story short, we start running.
The running was easy. Kat, Justin, and I split from Rachel and Susan around mile 2 but they caught up to us around mile 4 when Kat went to the bathroom. I ran with them for a while before Kat and Justin caught back up.
Run Run Run
We went up some hills. They were really easy. Justin went to the bathroom I don’t know when. Kat and I kept going.
Run Run Run
Around mile 8, Justin caught back up but said he was going to speed up. Cya! I went to the bathroom around mile 9. Kat went off and I had to wait in line for what seemed like hours but was probably 10 minutes in reality. After I got out, I wanted to catch up to Kat so I started running faster. It was dumb and this is why I finished slow. I caught up to her around mile 12 but we split up at 13.5 because I started to slow down.
Then, it was run run run. I took 3 more advil at mile 14. I adjusted my shoe at 17.5 because the laces were too tight and it was hurting the front of my ankle. I didn’t have any gu or shot bloks after mile 12 so I started to get hungry at mile 18. I also caught up to Kat here! But she kept running and I was shot. I had been drinking about a glass of water or energy drink at the water stations, and I think this was too little. I drank a couple of (half) cups of the energy drink stuff at the water station around 19 and it did help a lot. Running through the maze of houses between 19 and 20 was lame and I wanted more water. At 21, I got some shot bloks from Micah and had some more water. This helped a lot! Thanks Micah!
A lot of people were like “It’s only 10 more miles!” and it really annoyed me. I can read and I know it’s long, please shut up! I should get better at hearing this if I want to run another one I guess. My parents were at mile 25.5ish and they said “Only one more mile!!” and I wanted to kill them because 1 mile is still 5280 feet, and that’s a lot of feet between me and the goal.
Running along MLK Jr. Blvd. (25.5-26.1) was stupid and whoever thought it up should be shot. I was already very tired, and breathing in diesel fumes made me very very mad.
Everyone was at the finish, I saw them before I hit the line and that was cool. Joe was in the finishing box and we hugged. I got a medal from someone and someone else cut off the RFID tag from my shoe. This is kind of a blur - I wanted to talk to Joe more but I don’t know if it was me leaving or me getting rushed off but suddenly I was in this little exit thing where they had food. Nothing looked good but I grabbed some water and a banana because it was free.
Went to Brad’s for a very cold bath (god it was cold) and a short nap, then some food and I drove home.
I didn’t get any blisters, thanks to our training, running socks, luck, and Body Glide.
The foot that had been painful from our 19 mile run was fine the whole race. This stupid foot caused me 5 WEEKS of stress and it didn’t even hurt once! Oh well. 2 days later and I’ve still got sore hip and knee joints as well as various muscle aches. It is hilarious to see me walk after resting for a bit. It’s also hilarious to see me walk down a ramp or try to climb or go down stairs. SO! That is it! I hope you didn’t have anything better to do.
