National Marathon Race Report

After 8 months of blogging and trying to come up with interesting little bits, I’m struggling with how to summarize yesterday’s race. So let me start with a straight forward play by play, and then some thoughts.

I arrived at RFK about 30 minutes before race time and stayed in my car to keep warm --- it was freezing outside, about 30, and I was wearing only shorts with a long sleeved t-shirt and running jacket. Thankfully I had in the mess that is the trunk of my car, running gloves and an old Syracuse hat. After briefly meeting Anne and her boyfriend Bert, I lined up and boom, the race was on. The first 6-7 miles went by so quickly --- at mile 5, I picked up some Gatorade from Anne and felt really strong. A few hundred yards later, at the corner of 18^th and M, my parents were cheering me on. I felt great --- my pace was consistent (about 8:50 per mile as planned), ankle felt solid (no pain at all), and my left knee which had been acting up the past few weeks, was not giving me any trouble. At that point I’m thinking perhaps I could make a run at a pr. After seeing my parent’s, it was on to Connecticut Avenue, where my friend Emily was stationed around DuPont Circle. Still felt great, no problems at all

But then the hills started. We had quite a big one going up Columbia Road into Adams Morgan. Though the map indicated there were some hills along the course, I had not anticipated them being quite so steep and long. Ok, no big deal. I had done hill training, and knew to take them slow and steady. But the hills didn’t let up. We faced at least 3 or 4 more big ones as we made our way through Northeast during the first half of the race. Still, I felt great, was perhaps a little dehydrated, but nothing a little Gatorade wouldn’t fix. I reached the halfway point in 1 hour, 55 minutes, just as planned.

The beginning of the second half of the race retraced part of the first half, going down East Capital and then heading down Constitution. I took some more Gatorade from Anne at about mile 16, and at this point I was feeling a bit fatigued, but overall still felt pretty good. As I neared the corner of 9^th and Constitution, a big cheering section of my parents and friends Janet and Helen awaited me; it was so great to see them and I felt a surge of energy. That was about mile 17. About a half mile later, my left knee started aching, and aching, and I started to slow down. By mile 20 I was moving at barely a shuffle. Thank goodness for Anne, who was waiting for me right before I crossed the bridge into Anacostia. I stopped running for a good 5 minutes while Anne worked my knee, stretched and contorted it, and made me feel a whole lot better. At that point I thought I had dodged a bullet. But by mile 21, the pain was back, and to make a very long story short, I struggled over the remaining 5.2 miles. I alternated between walking and running, and the further I went, the more I walked. At mile 26, with only 385 yards to go, I was determined to run to the finish, and did --- final time of 4 hours, 19 minutes 46 seconds.

If this had happened to me before I injured my ankle, I would have been pissed off. After all, my slowest time prior to yesterday was 3 hours 56 minutes. I had never ever finished a marathon in over 4 hours. Yet, even though yesterday’s race was my slowest, it was also my most satisfying. Two years ago I never imagined I would be able to run at all, let alone finish a marathon. In the past year, I’ve gone from barely being able to run for more than 5 minutes at a time, to finishing a 26.2 mile race. That’s called progress. More importantly though, was the fact that we raised over $4,000 to support pancreatic cancer research and to raise awareness about the need to generate more support and funding for this awful disease. As I struggled to climb the final hill around mile 24, I had not a frown, but a big smile knowing how much I accomplished personally with my comeback from ankle surgery, and how much WE accomplished with the fundraising for cancer research. How could I feel nothing but satisfaction on such a day?

As I approached the finish line I saw Kate and her husband Tim cheering me on, and afterwards I was able to meet-up with them as well as my parents and the rest of my cheering section to share lots of stories and laughs. Even though yesterday’s race was the slowest I’ve ever run, it was by far the best and most memorable.