So it’s been a while since my last blog update and since my last race. It’s been hard to contain my excitementleading up to my next race, which will be the Leona Divide 50 mile run. Part of my excitement for this race is that it was my first 50 mile run and Iam excited to go back and just blow away my last time on this awesome course.The real excitement/anxiousness that I have for this race is that my wife andlifelong friend will be running the 50k race, their first 50k mind you andneither of them has even done a marathon yet. So on one hand I am super excitedfor them to do a 50k but on the other hand I just worry for the things thatcould go wrong during their run. I know for myself I learned everything thehard way and it wasn’t necessarily the first time around, it took me crampingup and hating life to think that I might be doing something wrong. So I want topass on as much information to these two in order to keep them from making thesame mistakes so they can have a better experience than the ones that I had.
I remember the first marathon that I ran was in 2005 and I was still in theMarine Corps so I actually got a free entry for the Rock n Roll San DiegoMarathon. Based off what I learned from the Marine Corps, in the way of runningwas that if you trained hard then you would do fine. Well that’s all relativeto what you think is training hard, I did PT (physical training) every morningand we(my platoon) would run a few miles and do some pushups, pull-ups, etc…That seemed like pretty good training for me so I thought I would step it up anotch and I would do, what I thought at the time, was a long run on theweekends, probably around 5 to 6 miles. So I did these workouts consistently,maybe a month out leading up to the marathon. So at this time I had no GPSwatch or any knowledge of mapmyrun or anything similar and I wanted to run 26.2miles before I actually went out and ran the marathon. So I drove my car frommy barracks on Camp Pendleton out onto the PCH through Oceanside and downthrough Carlsbad to about the 13 mile mark which turned out to be right aboutat Cannon Rd. That next Saturday morning I put some water (about 30oz) incamelback, laced up my Brooks Adrenaline shoes and headed out for my testmarathon run. So everything was great, the weather was typical of southernCalifornia, nice and sunny but not hot with a cool ocean breeze along the PCH,people were out riding their bikes, surfing, walking and running. I made itCannon Rd., my half way mark, refilled my camelback at a water fountain andstarted back. I thought to myself that I would do just fine come race day basedoff how I was doing during this run. Then I got back to Camp Pendleton, maybe 8miles or so from my barracks/finish line and leading up to this point I wasexperiencing some definite fatigue but then my legs started to cramp. Theycramped really bad, like where you can’t shake your leg any which way to getrid of the pain and you just feel a ball of tissue roll up the back of your legand you’re grabbing it, cursing. An experienced runner would have known not to let this happen, theywould have taken in some electrolytes and prevented this cramping. Well I hadno knowledge of such things, electrolytes, I knew you drank water and sucked itthe fu*k up then kept going, I tried that and it wasn’t working. I thought tomyself that I was just weak and that I needed to train harder or just block outthe pain and keep going but every step I took my legs just got tighter andtighter. So I sat down and hung my head thinking that I was just a big pussy,then I would get up and try to keep going. Well this continued until I finallymade it back to my barracks. I got to my room disappointed with my performanceand looked at myself in the mirror covered in white stains, from all my sweatand wondered what I would do come race day, my answer was just suck it up andnot be a little bitch like I had been today. Come marathon day I was pumped andI started out strong feeling great. Around mile 10 I kept seeing this 3:30 signand I knew that’s the group that I wanted to finish with. Mile 15 came and the3:30 sign got a little further from me then 16 and I could barely see it in thedistance, then 18 and ahhh shit my legs were cramping again. I found aport-o-potty and hid in shame, since I thought that if you weren’t’ running theentire time in a marathon that you sucked, period. So as I sat in the port opotty I thought, here I am being a little bitch again, I just need to get backout there and finish this race. I got out and tried to run, I couldn’t, I beganto walk, with my head down I walked and walked then I walked some more. As Iwalked I got some Gatorade at an aid station and at another, then I began tofeel better. With about 4 miles to go I started to run again, I didn’t feelgreat but I could move without extreme cramping pain. I crossed the finish linewell behind my 3:30 sign at about 5:10. I was pleased that I had finished but Idid not experience any sincere joy, since I felt I had been defeated. Mostpeople in this situation would probably think, hey maybe this isn’t for me letsstick to lifting weights or playing pickup basketball games but all I wanted toafter that was get better at running.
Afterthis not so great marathon experience I had another go at the Rock n Rollmarathon the next year and only slightly improved my time, very slightly, and Ihad almost the same problems during the run. I did this a few more times beforeI actually started researching what I needed to do in order to feel half waydecent for the duration of an entire marathon. Now I feel like I’ve got it downto where I know when I should be taking electrolytes and how much liquid I needto bring on a run, but all of that took a lot of trial and error followed bymore error and then some more. Through all of that though I have found a uniqueway to deal with discomfort and that’s to laugh about it and think of ways thatit could be worse, which provides me with some good laughs and helps keep megoing.
So anyways back to Leona, I don’t want my wife and friend to have similar experiences since I feel responsible for showing them how things should bedone. I didn’t have anyone to show me anything about distance running and Inever bothered to look for any information on the topic until I had too manybad experiences. I hope they both have a tough race, but after finishing stillwant to run in the future.
