Running and Running and Still Running

Finally Done

Finally sitting in the grass

Crossing the finish line

Mile 23 and ready to die

Headed to the race
So last weekend was the weekend that John was running the half marathon and I was running the full marathon in Long Beach. After 3 months of training I think we were both tired of running and ready to get it over with. The most I had run was 18 miles which meant I had 8 more to go. Running 26 miles takes a long time and that was what I was dreading the most. We went up to Long Beach on Sat. afternoon because we had to get all our race packets and the race started at 7 AM so driving up on Sunday would have been hard. It was a very cloudy cool weekend which was good for running. We had some Italian for dinner so we could stock up on carbs and then hit the sack early, in our nice king size bed. Long beach in some areas is a really cute town and then some areas are more “home of snoop dog” if you know what I mean. Of course you don’t sleep well when you know you have something important to wake up for so I tossed and turned all night. Finally 5:30 came and we outfitted ourselves for some serious running. As you can see in the pictures I have a waistband (aka fanny pack) that I wear because I carry my music, shot blocks, chapstick, and cell phone with me. It also holds water but I knew there would be plenty on the course and skipped packing it. Once the shuttle dropped us off at the race it became very crowded and of course everyone wants to use the bathroom before they start so we waited in a 20 min. line to go before the race. The race actually started while we were in line but since 20,000 people have to take off you have plenty of time. We didn’t start until 25 minutes after the first racer took off. You wear a chip on your shoe that records when you cross the start line so that you know how long the race actually takes you to run and you don’t have to worry about when you cross the start line.
John and I did several fist bumps to pump ourselves up and then we were slowly off. When you have everyone crowded in to the starting line you can’t take off all that fast. Then within the first half mile John’s knee started hurting and he needed to stop and stretch it. I wasn’t sure if I should stop or what the appropriate wife thing to do was. He told me to just go on and I knew if he could get it stretched out he would catch up to me. Sure enough a couple miles later he found me and he was working through the knee pain. He had to stretch every mile or so and then run fast in between so it wasn’t going to really work for us to run together. We separated again and as I got close to the split between the full and half marathon I was afraid I wouldn’t see him again but then he popped up. The first thing he said was “did you see them handing out donut holes back there,” of course I did. I showed some self control and only at one though, after all I was running past them. We gave a kiss right before the course split and then the man directing traffic told us to say goodbye.
After we split I entered in to no-mans land. I longed to cut over in to the half marathon group and run gleefully to the finish line but no! Off I went with just a few marathoners like myself. It is much harder to run when you are running all alone. Yes there were some people in front of me and some behind but compared to the group I was hoping for it was pretty lonely. I expected crowds cheering along the way and bands playing but other than an occasional group it was pretty quiet. It made the occasional cheering family with a loud bell very exciting. My goal was to make it 20 miles before I started walking so once I got to 20 I finally walked for a few minutes. At this point my body thought the race was over and I would have loved for the finish line to be at 20 miles. I finally asked my body to start running again because we needed to get this thing over with. I set my body in running motion but it was locked. My legs had no desire to keep moving. Even once I got running again it was more of a running motion at a walking pace. When I had 4 miles left I knew I was going to be cutting it close if I wanted to finish in 5 hours. I would will my body to keep running and it just wasn’t cooperating. Apparently the mental battle will only take you so far. John had finished his race long before me so he went back to the hotel showered and then came back to the race to meet me. My music was about to die at mile 23 so John met me and gave me his music. He told me to run it out and I told him to shut up. The last 2 miles my left knee was hurting so bad that I was continuing my running motion but limping and staring at the ground and it felt like I was barely moving. Every mile took forever! When I finally saw the finish line I almost started crying, I was just so happy to be almost done and so tired. I tried to put on a good face for my big finish but there would be no sprinting it out in the end. After I crossed the finish line John kept yelling at me over the fence but I just was in a blind walk to the grass so I could sit down. I grabbed my goodie bag, wobbled to the grass and then sat down. I was so happy to be sitting down. Unfortunately I had to get back up to walk to the car and then we had a hour drive home. This meant by the time we got home we were nice and locked up. We got ourselves up 3 flights of stairs and in to our apartment, my shower felt so good. On the way home John stopped and got 2 chili cheese dogs but I wasn’t really in the mood for that after running 26 miles. We did go to a movie where we sat in pain and ate popcorn and candy, also not a good idea after a long run.
Monday morning was a horrible reminder of what happened the day before. John and I still had the worst knee pain but I am happy to say that come Tuesday I am feeling much better. Overall I am glad I did it but have no desire to do another one. I guess I should never say never because as I get farther from the pain I might get crazy ideas again. Now I can focus on something even more exciting, 5 of my college pals will be arriving on Thursday and staying until Sunday. I can just scream with excitement!
As I post this blog I see my site has had 505 hits, very slow and steady progress, just like my run. Oddly enough it also took me 5 hours and 5 min. to finish the race.