Post-marathon update

I finished. My chip time was 4:46. I set out with a goal of running in 4:30, but as the race went on, my only goal became to finish without throwing up. Running this marathon was the most difficult, arduous task I have ever accomplished in my life. I don't know why I expected it would be easy. Training was fun-- despite the occasional worrisome injuries and runs that didn't go so well, I really enjoyed watching the long miles increase. I felt great during my first half marathon-- the weather was perfect, my pace was at a 9:27 minute-per-mile the whole way, and I ended up with enough energy to run the extra five miles needed for practice.

But the marathon was a different story.

It started out innocuously enough. The night before, all the Central Florida Team In Training participants checked into our Disney hotels and went to a banquet at Epcot to load up on pasta and listen to speakers. Back at the hotel, I set my alarm for 2 a.m., as the bus was picking us up at 3. Three hours of fitful sleep. After a bagel breakfast, I attached my chip, put on my Team In Training jersey with "Rachel" painted across the front, strapped on the GPS, and headed out the door. When we got to the staging area, a large parking lot in Epcot, we wandered around for hours, checking out the other runners, talking, speculating about how the race would go. After walking to my starting corral, my running partner Susan and I waited for the gun to go off. She was wearing a pace band, and I had the GPS.

At 6 a.m. the race started. It was 60 degrees, still pleasant for running. The first mile or so was slow as there were hordes of runners to get through. 24,000 in all, and often the half and full marathoners ran together. We tried to keep a conservative pace-- we were supposed to aim for 10:18 the first mile and we ended up being around 10:10. The next several miles were a similar story. I felt great, loaded up on gels every couple miles, and drank the Gatorade offered by the volunteers. The sun came up, and at one point our Team In Training coach found us and ran with us for a little while. The first 14 miles flew by. At mile 13, just after running through Magic Kingdom, I saw my husband, who was volunteering along the course, and that gave me a big boost. Then my knee and feet started to hurt, in places that had never bothered me before. No problem-- I kept running. At mile 14, my partner needed to use the bathroom. That immediately put us behind schedule by a good minute and a half. We panicked at first and tried to make up for it (big mistake), but as the sun started to bear down harder, I realized that I absolutely couldn't keep the same pace with my friend. I felt sick to my stomach. I told her to go ahead, and at mile 17 we parted.

It wasn't improper nutrition-- I didn't hit the wall. I still could feel that I had energy, but the sun, 80 degree temperatures, and all the gels in my stomach started to make me feel horrible. I doused myself with water at every stop, I ate a salt packet, and I never passed up the opportunity to have a First Aid worker slather green icy pain gel on my left knee. But after Animal Kingdom, which must have been around Mile 16, we were not in any amusement park until the end. Actually, there was MGM, but it seemed to go by all too quickly. I heard a song I liked in MGM and that made me wish I had more music to help me pick up the pace. We were just running under the sun on boulevards that all looked identical. A few spectators and marching bands were stationed along the way, but that didn't make it any easier. I tried thinking of my friend with leukemia in whose honor I was doing the race, and how my own struggle was entirely self-induced. I had to finish for her sake.

By now I was breaking up the running with frequent walk breaks. 80 degrees, probably hotter on asphalt. "You live in Florida, you must be used to it," people said, but I told them that no, it hadn't been that warm during a run for months. I tried to keep up with the same groups of runners who seemed to be stopping and starting as much as I was. I caught up with one guy I'd seen throughout the race and asked him what time he was shooting for. "About 4:20," he told me calmly. "One 10K to go." He was stopping and starting as much as I was, and I'd seen my goal evaporate, but I didn't tell him I thought we were way off. I concentrated on following an older man whose t-shirt proclaimed, "I love you, Rachel." Wasn't a message meant for this Rachel, but it would do. Run, walk, run, walk, try not to get sick. Need something to eat. Not just gels and oranges. Banana, that'll work. Nestle crunch bars? Ugh. Free power gels? I took another and held it, sticky and half-opened, for awhile before finally flinging it down. If I ever saw another gel it was going to be the end of me. Try to run more than walk. 1 mile of running and you can take a walk break. Okay, .75 and then a walk break. And then any other walk break through water stations. More water over the head-- that felt good. Follow the woman in the Tinker Bell costume. Pretend she has some pixie dust to give you energy. Tinker Bell is also taking walk breaks, her gauzy skirt looking wilted.

Finally the miniature empires of Epcot beckoned. I don't know how I made it through the last 9 miles. By now there were more spectators, and I got a lot of "Go, Rachel!" which cheered me up but didn't ease how badly I felt.

At the very end, I caught up with a Team In Training runner I sometimes saw at group runs. I had heard she ran a 10K with an 8:30 pace, same as I did a year ago, so I'd always thought we might finish at the same time. Lo and behold, there she was. I wanted to tell her this but I could barely speak. Gospel choir. Gold robes swaying back and forth, a joyful noise. I could no longer appreciate the entertainment. Mile 26. How long is that .2? Why does my GPS read 26.67? Are the measurements off? Are they trying to torture me? Finally I crossed the finish line. They snapped my photo. Gave me my medal, took my chip, and I stumbled off to the Team In Training tent. I saw my running partner-- she had finished 6 minutes before me, so she must have been having a tough time as well. I borrowed her cell phone to call my husband, who had just arrived in all the chaos and got an automatic text message from Disney that I was done, before he could make it to the finish line. I didn't care. I was so happy to see him. One of my friends from work showed up too. I almost started crying. I was so glad to be done.

The rest of the day I just felt relief. I could not eat anything for several hours, as bad as I knew this was for me, I just felt too sick. I walked around the resort with Susan and we talked about how tough it had been, rehashing every moment of the course as we tried to stave off the inevitable soreness. Finally I ate half a cheeseburger and some salty fries, which tasted wonderful, considering how much salt I'd lost. Later there was a beer, a victory party, and a lot of sleep.

Reflecting on the whole experience, I can't believe how difficult it was, and a part of me wonders if all marathons are that tough, or if it really was simply the stress of trying to run in 80 degree weather. Of course I'll have to find out, and the only way to do that will be to run another one. A different one, not Disney. I'm thinking New York, since I used to live there. Susan wants to keep training together, too.

The Disney race director, when asked to describe marathons, said, "It's like repeatedly hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. When you finally stop, it feels really good."

I am dead near positive I won't become one of those people who runs a marathon every weekend. Half marathons seem like a more manageable distance for me, and I feel fine running for that length of time. However, having now had the experience, I am already coming up with things I'd do differently next time. Maybe I would do a longer training run of 22 or 24 miles. Maybe I wouldn't eat so many gels, but try to get in some real food. But hindsight is... well, you know. I'm not beating myself over the head about any mistakes I might have made-- you don't ask for imperfect weather, either, but you just do your best. Kind of like life itself. I'm still proud. All this week, I've been walking around with the knowledge I ran a marathon. Or rather, I've been stumbling around as stiff as Fred Sanford, knowing that I accomplished something wonderful and insane that only 1% of the population experiences. Now I've got to step back and assess the damage to my body, the weight gain, the nagging injuries, the time spent away from family, and ask myself whether I will do it better or differently next time.

I'll post links to pictures soon...