I've been wanting to run a marathon for a long time. Today I did such a thing. I have to say though, I didn't think I'd be in such a great amount of pain after.
I've been training (improperly) since last summer. I had the ambition, but no real knowledge of how to prepare for such a daunting task. I started running to my gym every day either before or after playing an hour or so of basketball or soccer. For a while, I thought it was working.
Later I received a plan/schedule from an experience marathon runner which had me running only 4 times a week with specific miles each week. With the running I did before this schedule, I thought I could definitely add miles here or cut a day there if I needed. This continued practically every month I trained.
Once November rolled around, I was given a new pair of shoes which were supposed to help me run better and longer. Little did I know, these shoes would lead to the extreme pain I felt while running the marathon this morning. The shoes I had, did not support my feet the way I need them to be. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this. The effect was this: I was training with shoes which were causing my feet to adjust to the lack of support, thus creating bad habits in my running while I trained. My lack of knowledge would prove painful even more so because I purchase two pairs of these shoes.
These bad habits were starting a pain pattern in my left ankle. I didn't know the shoes were the problem, so I put a brace on and just kept running. In early January, I went out for a run which was supposed to be the longest I had done up to that point. Halfway done, I felt the strongest ankle pain I had yet to feel during this training. Nearly 8 miles out, I now had the unfortunate burden of walking back to my apartment.
Flash forward three and a half weeks to today and the pain and discomfort with no running outside of playing a little bit of basketball (because honestly, my leg could be broken and I'd still play basketball haha, I LOVE IT!) remained.
With a terrible night's sleep because of the nervousness completely inside of me, I woke at 3:40 am and prepped to leave my hotel room. Packed and ready, I left to go pick up my girlfriend from her room so we could go to Denny's for a pre-run breakfast. Next we walk to a shuttle in the light of street lamps and bear the traffic of going down the road two miles in about 40 minutes to the start line.
I feel like I want to throw up from all the nervousness I am feeling. I try to remain calm, but my girlfriend is the one who helps keep me focused and encouraged. It was my first marathon, you couldn't tell looking into my eyes, but one look at my hands and you could see them shaking. I couldn't place my bib (my number for the race) on my shirt or the tracking device on my shoe because of the jerking in my hands. Time flies when you're tense. Its 6:30 and my waves starts in four minutes.
A kiss goodbye and I'm on my way. The ankle injury had completely thrown of my goal going into the race. Instead of the sub-4 hour goal I was attempting to train for, I was now aiming for something close to 5 hours, hopefully. So with a sore ankle, I kept an 11 minute mile, giving myself a few minutes insurance for my goal.
Somewhere between the 8th and 11th mile, a series of small hills set off a strong pain in my already injured right ankle and a subtle yet growing pain in my left. What I actually remember was after a brief visit from my girlfriend, I found myself in the need for a slower pace. My pride said no, but my ankle could barely handle any pressure.
For the 13th mile, I stopped passing up people and mostly watched as they passed me. First a barefoot guy, then an older man with a shirt whose shirt read: "You just got passed by a Great-Grandpa," and immediately my ego took a shot. I ran on and off till the 18th mile. That was when I began hurting so much, I had to walk! Fortunately, I had an angel appear who had been waiting for me. My girlfriend saw me in pain, and not a moment too soon. She rushed to my side and walked with me until I knew I needed to start running again.
Once I began running again, it only became harder as the pain grew from bad to worse. When it came to the 20th mile, my ankles were telling me they could no longer run. To me, speed walking was the new running, but I became worried that I might reach a time when I could no longer walk. That time did come at mile 22.
I thought to myself, "This isn't what was supposed to happen. It wasn't meant to be this way!" I trained, though improperly, hard the best I could to finish strong with a respectable time. But now I'm at the 22nd mile, well hydrated, full winded, yet unable move forward because of nearly unbearable pain in my ankles.
Walking was dreadfully painful, but there was 4 miles left, and as I stated in a previous post, I NEEDED TO finish.
Luckily, I found inspiration! The 20th mile is supposed to be "the wall" for all marathon runners. It is the time where you hit a place where it's suddenly harder than before to continue running. So because of this little tidbit, the people who put on the event posted inspirational quotes from (apparently) famous current and former marathon runners.
I found strength in the words, "Pain hurts, but eventually it doesn't hurt any worse!" This I learned was mostly true. Yes the pain didn't get worse, but no one wants to endure a very bad pain for a long period of time. But now there was only 3 miles left. I could endure...or so I thought.
It took one more piece of inspiration for me to realize I could fight the pain and run to the end. An older man was still running and eventually he made it to my side. He was slow, but he was steady. He had his own pace which he didn't divert from. I knew if this man could be running the entire time. I could finish the last few moments running through the pain.
Through the pain, I could see the finish line. About 50 feet away, I see my lovely lady run to me in her sweater and flip flops, grab my hand to hold me steady as my running/hobbling takes me across the finish line.
Yesterday I Google'd what to eat after a marathon, and I received a link from a "For Dummies" site. The first thing it said that people would want to do after a marathon is cry, throw up, lie on the ground and probably eat like crazy. When I crossed, I held on to my girlfriend so I wouldn't fall from the ankle pain and cried. A marathon is a crazy journey.
After taking a picture with my finisher's medal in front of the finish line, I left to the medical tent to check on the situation of my ankles. Here is where I learned my running technique was wrong, and the EMT could tell based on where the multiple blisters on my feet and after looking at my shoes. Apparently, the shoes matter more than I thought. But it didn't matter anymore. I was done. I finished.
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