My Way*

I'm writing this from the comfortable distance of more than 24 hours since I ran a full marathon. I ran for 6 hours, 17 minutes and 48 seconds and I felt good the whole time. I'm sure 95% of marathon runners would shake their heads in disbelief if they heard that time and then heard me say I had a good day. It was a good day in my shoes.

June 1: 26.2 miles. I DID IT!
I got lucky. Everything went my way on Sunday in San Diego. I stuck with my race strategy, I felt great at mile 20 and I finished strong. I knew what kind of pain to expect with my feet and I was grateful for the orthotics that mitigated that pain somewhat. I followed my coach's advice and held back at the beginning. To the casual observer, there may not have been an appreciable difference between my pace during the first few miles and the rest of the race, but I was consciously trying to conserve energy, and I think it made a difference. It was hot out there and there was almost no shade, but I think a lifetime of being hot and physically uncomfortable toughened me up. It was hardly the worst I've ever been through on a race day--90 degrees and serious humidity at the Memphis triathlon takes that honor--or a number of other choice days, including during treatment. As I told someone, I'm built to endure. The bar for discomfort is quite high.

Dead from the Waist Up
When I crossed the finish line, I felt great. I meant to throw my head back exultantly, arms up and all the rest of that "I did it!" stuff. I'm not sure what my body was doing beside moving forward. I think I was grinning. I certainly felt high. One thing I know I wasn't doing: I wasn't crying. What happened to the big emotional release? Didn't I earn the catharsis? Wasn't this the moment that was going to change my life forever? I respected the distance. I overcame the obstacles. I avoided the proverbial wall altogether. I have a feeling the tears will be coming later. It would be typical of me to do even that in my own time.

Achieving the Achievable
The CWA (aka Ramon) sent us a pre-race guide for calculating one's pace and strategy to achieve our goals, which he grouped into three ranges: aggressive, achievable and conservative. I knew what the numbers were, but I didn't allow myself to really think through those numbers because, as I often say, I'm not a numbers person. I had a ballpark figure in mind based on my performance at the Brooklyn half last month. At midnight before the race, I tried to make the rest of the numbers stick in my head. In the morning, after I lubed and lathered up with sunscreen, I wrote a couple of numbers on my hand.

I consider it a miracle that I remembered to hit the split button on my new watch almost every time. I didn't want to fiddle with the display too much for fear that I'd reset something or other. That meant that my watch displayed the cumulative time elapsed, not the split in progress. Needless to say, this was of limited benefit, but it kept me from having to take off 11 minutes from the clock at each mile marker. It took 11 minutes to get to the start line from my corral! Of course I managed to hit the wrong button anyway. Time stood still at 3:45 for about 10 minutes, I think.

Now, more than a day later, the run seems unreal, as if someone else did it. My quads are sore, but that's about it. I have to be careful not to minimize the achievement by tossing it off simply because I did it and not someone else. I raised $5450 to date (I think). I have run 328.2 miles, and I have a few more miles to go before I cross the next finish line on June 21 in Alaska. I'd like to run that one as a race as opposed to "just a long training run," which was the way I was coached to approach this one. That certainly made sense for my first. If it's not going to be my last--and that's a big if--I will have to challenge myself to reach for the aggressive goal rather than doing what's merely achievable.

June 1: 26.2 miles
Miles to date: 328.2

* I'm talking about the Sid Vicious version, not Frank Sinatra's whom I love in a different way.