A Marathon Day

I did the Tucson Marathon today. The plan was to just have a long training day - 26.2 miles at my training pace, something like 10 minute miles.

So I got up at 5AM and started drinking caffinated tea and eating, part of the prerace ritual get the GI tract going, but my body knew it was 5 AM and it was supposed to be resting. I hung around the house quite late waiting for the big evacuation, but finally I had to head to the race start. True to form, I arrived at the race start 5 minutes or so after the official start at 7:30. My body processes had finally kicked in so I had to duck into a port-o-john. When I finally crossed the start line, they were tearing down the scaffolding, so I thought I might be way behind the other runners, but I started catching the stragglers within the first mile.

I was so excited to be racing, I was running 8 minute miles gobbling up the slow runners. I tried to slow down, to pace myself, but I wound up running 8 minute miles for the first 8 miles. And I felt great.

The fatigue seemed to come in multiples of 8. The first 8 miles, I felt great. From 8 to 16 miles, I felt fatigued, but I was still running well. At 16 miles, the fatigue got heavy. At 18 miles I was hurting. I started falling apart at 20 miles. At 22 miles I was trying to just keep my legs moving. At 24 miles I was wasted. At 25 miles, I was so exhausted, I stopped running and walked a tenth of a mile.

I had a mile left, and I really wanted to finish with dignity. I started to run, but my legs were just gone. I was suffering terribly and I thought I might have to walk the last mile when a HOT young women in little hottie shorts that I had passed miles earlier ran by me. I thought, OK, Hang with her. I dug deep and suddenly my legs took off. I was running fast. So fast, I blew by the hottie and ran hard the last mile to the finish. 3 hours 56 minutes start to finish.

So I guess I know what kind of carrot to hang when I need to move.

I could barely stand up at the finish, let alone walk. I did a good job of staying hydrated and keeping my blood sugar up through the race (I had to pee half a dozen times during the race) and I sat around and ate and drank at the finish line. While I was recuperating, the DJ played Feel Good Inc and it became my marathon theme song. I would have danced if I could have stood up.

So a little ibuprophen later and I am moving around, but still quite sore and tired. I hope I sleep well tonight.