The First Marathon

Him... 

Marathon training is what I imagine raising a baby is like.   It takes a significant commitment, an enormous amount of time, and you might shit your pants during the marathon.  You have to make sacrifices, it's painful, and yet satisfying.  We began together and almost finished together.  It was great to train with my wife, I think we became even closer and stronger.  We ran down the lake during the sunrise, we were caught in two massive rain storms, we ran in 95 degree blistering heat and loved every minute of it.   We learned that planning a European vacation towards the end of the training wasn't the smartest idea.  We also learned that diet is a very important and eating a big steak before a 15 mile run doesn't feel good. 

The marathon was quite the experience, unlike anything we've done before.  50,000 runners and easily 500,000 spectators.  The entire course was lined with screaming spectators, so many that it was a tad distracting.  I've found that long runs are most enjoyed when you can relax and clear your mind, the marathon was the opposite. 

Around mile 8 my knee started to ache and become harder to keep the pace.  I started to slow down, further and further.  When I realized I was going to have a very hard time with running, since it was hurting more and more, I told Tara she should go on without me.  She reluctantly went forward.  I had to stop and walk around mile 12.  My knee was really hurting now, forcing me to do a 'cripple run'.  I managed to force myself to go on until the aid station at mile 18 where I stopped to ice my knee.  When I tried to stand back up the pain made me realize that I was done.  I decided to throw in the towel and hitched a ride back to the start on the medical bus. 

After all the training it was disappointing to not finish, but it was smart to stop when I did.  I think I might have to try for next year...or another smaller marathon.  At least I have a great training partner lined up.

She...

I was so excited for marathon day to finally come.  After all of the planning, tracking and work I was ready to get to it. Saturday night I could not fall asleep forever and then I proceeded to wake up every hour to check the time until the alarm finally went off at 5:30am.

True to Dan and Tara style, we arrived at the start corrals just in the nick of time.  The line to get in was enormous so we joined others in climbing the fence during the national anthem.  Then I retied my shoes several times while waiting impatiently for our turn to get going.

Our strategy of attacking for this race was to start out moderate for the first 10 miles at a 9 minute mile and then kick it up to 8:40 minute miles after that and hope that the slower start would allow us to keep going strong through the final 6.2 miles. 

It was an amazing site to see and be part of such a huge number of racers and to see so many spectators.  Being an introvert that doesn't particularly like to be crowded, I was ready for reaching the point where the race crowd starts to thin so you have room to stretch out as experienced in the other (obviously smaller) races we have done.  Somewhere around mile 10 I started to get a little frustrated by the constant elbowing, squeezing and feeling like I was going to trip on someone. This is also the point where Dan was starting to slow down so I was keeping an eye on staying near him without tripping on someone.  When he said to go ahead without him I was bummed to go it alone but ready to start passing in hopes of finding a window personal space.

By the time I hit mile 17 I was terribly sick of the west side of town! I kept thinking when the heck are we going to get out of here!  There was less shade through the second half of the race and thus the people with sprinklers were my best friends ever.  I kept trying to get in the zone and hit my stride but wasn't able to get there.  The playlist that I ever-so-carefully put into order was barely audible.  My little running mantras were not helping me to focus. But I was excited to be on track for a below 4 hour finish time.

Around mile 21 I became pretty disappointed.  That is when my goals (except finishing) were a bust. I had the personal goal of not walking. Well, my leg muscles were getting so tight that I felt that I had to walk and stretch them a bit... but once I did then it became a vicious cycle of wanting to be done and to walk. And then the under 4 hour finish was out of my reach. Despite those goals being missed, I pushed myself as much as I could for those last 6.2 miles.  I hadn't made it under 4 hours but I finished...

And as I was walking to our predetermined meeting point, I wanted nothing more than to jump into an icy pool.

Done!

We sat together in the grass for a minute before heading to the car; after swapping our stories Dan said that he wanted to do it again.  He wants to be able to cross the finish line.  I know that I can do better.  And we spent the rest of the day talking about our individual experiences on race day and what we could do better for our next marathon adventure. 

We both use the word disappointed in our stories of the marathon... but don't look to far into that.  To quote Dan: you truly feel alive during those miles.  We had a completely amazing experience.