I Did It!

i did it. i finished a marathon. i did not finish as fast as i had hoped, but the main goal was completed. i really felt great for the first part of the marathon. i was staying right at 11 min per mile, a pace that i thought if i kept i could finish pretty strong. if you have been reading my blog you know i was worried about my shoe situation. at mile 10 my right foot just under my ankle started hurting. i thought i could run through it. at mile 13 the half marathoners split off and the pain in my foot was getting much worse, but i was still able to run near my goal pace. at mile 15 the pain either went away or i got used to it. but i was feeling pretty good. between miles 17-19 my left foot started hurting in the same spot. it got bad enough i finally started having to walk longer at the drink stops than it took me to drink, maybe 30-45 seconds.

on that note, at the race the only drinks they were handing out were water and lime powerade. i don't like water and needed the energy from the powerade anyway. i do like powerade, but not lime, however i decided i had to drink it. i did not use as many gels/chomps as i usually do during a race. for the entire race i took 1/2 of a gel and 6 chomps. i would normally take that much in 2 hours of running. i started sucking on the chews at an 55min into the race (pretty normal, you are supposed to take 4 every 45-60min). i only had 6 chews because i had tried 2 a few weeks ago during a run. so i took 3 in a row. at mile 9 i picked up a gel from one of the stations and i could only force 1/2 of it down at mile 10. around mile 15 i started the next 3 chews. after that i didn't take anything else, other than powerade. and the cups of powerade we not very full so i occasionally had to get 2 or 3 cups.

off that tangent, at mile 22 i started walking more than running. my foot was absolutely killing me. about mile 24 i tried as hard as i could to at least jog. about 10 steps in i looked up and there was a guy walking and passing me and leaving me in his dust. i decided as bad as it hurt i should just try to walk as fast as i could. i was a little embarrassed passing all of the people on the side of the road, they all encouraged me to keep going and told me i was doing great and didn't have much further to go. i thought to myself that i was not doing great, and that the people telling me i was almost done did not know how far a few miles is when your foot is killing you. i thought about quitting a few times, but thought of all the people who told me i shouldn't be running, or that i couldn't do it. once i even thought about stopping for just a minute, but i kept the thought "relentless forward progress" in my head and i never stopped. i finally got to the spot where the race goes into the baseball stadium and knew my uncle would be there watching for me, so i started jogging again, luckily the path went around the field in the dirt and that was much more forgiving than the pavement. i finished strong, at least for the last 100 yards.

after running this marathon, i feel like i was pretty well prepared to run a marathon. i feel like, with the right shoes i could run one at my goal pace without much trouble. at mile 18 i was still running close to a 11:30min/mile pace. and after walking almost all of the last 4 miles, i finished at just over 13min/mile. i can't wait to run another! my total time was 5:42.58, by my gps i actually ran about 26.5 miles.

my left foot was swollen and hurt very bad yesterday. i could barely put any weight on it. i had to use the inside of the foot to bear weight and limp on the foot. today the foot was a little more swollen, but i could bear a little more weight on it. i wrapped in it ice for about 2 hours today and that made it feel much better. then i put a heating pad on it and now i have it wrapped with an ace bandage. occasionally, i can take a normal step, so it is getting much better. more ice and heat tonight and i think it will be near normal tomorrow. my upper legs have been a little sore as well, but really not any worse than when i ran my 18 mile training run.

so i did two personal bests on saturday. my marathon time was a personal best for a marathon :), and i ran 22 miles, the longest run of my life. i don't really count the full marathon distance as running since after mile 22 i started walking mostly.

quote of the day: "The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labour is immense," Arnold Bennett.