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Pain Is Weakness Leaving the Body
Ahh. It's over. I “ran” a marathon. The 2005 Marine Corps Marathon was yesterday and I finished 26.2 miles in 5 hours, 15 minutes, and 48 seconds (5:15:48). The top man finished in 2:22 and the top woman finished in 2:47 so I was pretty *cough* close.
I was really hoping for a 5-hour-or-less time, but, well, when you train slower, it's kind of hard to run faster. I hurt today (I'm hobbling around like an old man) but you know what? It was a blast! Yesterday was really a great day and I thank everyone who helped make it happen—all the incredibly generous contributors to my fundraising effort (which will continue until January, if you'd still like to help!), and especially my girlfriend, her sister, and my family, all of whom have been very supportive in every possible way. L. gets the most special thanks for being there through the whole thing, following my split times through her cell phone, racing all over the course to cheer me on, and then being there at the end w/a smile and open arms which was really all I needed to cap off such an amazing experience. Thank you L, and thank you all!
I learned several things running my first marathon. First, even though I hadn't planned on it, it's fun to have a camera with you. I took several photos, some of which I've turned into an MCM Photo Set on Flickr. However, I wish I had taken more photos—especially since I wasn't ever going to set any speed records, I should have taken more time to savor the whole thing a bit more. That said, there were points yesterday where my right arm and shoulder hurt so much I thought I was going to have to quit the race. I've never felt that before and I wonder if it was from reaching around to grab my camera off my hip and raising it to take pics while running and walking. It sounds like these are small things, but every little movement can add up over 26.2 miles.
The other things I learned is that you shouldn't start too fast! My AIDS Marathon coaches told us this repeatedly, but I foolishly didn't listen. I feel badly because I started out as the ringleader in the first few miles pushing the group I was with to keep a 5-hour pace. One of the five of our group went on to finish in 4:58, another in 5:01, and another in 5:12, so the starting out fast didn't hurt them too much. However, I certainly started feeling it and had to slow down, as did my running partner; at about mile 17 (in the middle of the Haynes Point Psychout) we hit a big wall. We got a bit of a second wind after slowing down for a few miles, but we never really returned to our earlier pace. So the lesson is to try to start slower, and maintain a steadier pace. Of course, I wonder if maybe we had just pushed through that wall and tried to keep going, would we have gotten our second wind, anyway? Or would we have pushed ourselves to the point of breakdown and been unable to finish? We'll never know. That's what makes a marathon so tough; it's a mind and balance game, trying to judge what kind of pain you can push though, and what kind of pain is really going to bring you crashing to a halt.
Anyway, for the record, here's what we did: We started at a 4:1 run/walk ratio—running four minutes, walking one. At the 10-mile mark we turned it up to a 5:1 ratio, and at mile 18 or 19 we turned back to the 4:1. For the last 2.2 miles (from the 24 mile mark) I ran through all walk breaks—very slowly, obviously. Here are our mile splits:
1—12:46
2—13:10
3—11:53
4—12:23
5—11:28
6—11:22
7—11:36
8—11:19
9— (missed it)
10—21:53 (/2=10:57)
11—10:50
12—11:02
13—11:19
14—11:15
15—11:56
16—11:39
17—11:58 (we crashed)
18—16:08
19—12:06
20—(missed it)
21—25:37 (/2=12:49)
22—14:00 (we walked an entire 4-minute run period during this mile)
23—12:12
24—13:45 (we again walked an entire 4-minute run period during this mile)
25—11:10
26—13:01
Best mile: 10:50
Avg time: 13:09 (that's about a minute off b/c of the two splits I missed; the real average was 12:02, according to the official results).
I sadly placed 13,403rd out of 19,112 marathon runners—not even middle of the pack. (There were supposed to be 30,000 runners, but the results site says only 19k were “marathon runners.” I have no idea where the rest of them were.) I was the 8,711th man to finish out of 11,294 male marathon runners, and number 1,406 out of 1,714 in my age group. Yeah, that's sad.
Posted October 31, 2005 10:14 AM | marathon
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SAD???!!!
Better statistics to use in your analysis:
Number of people who never have and never will have run a marathon: several billion.
Number of people who ran this marathon: 19k.
You realize you are in at least the top 99.9999999981 percent of the population. Hardly "sad" at all...
Posted by: Cathy at October 31, 2005 11:17 AM
Congratulations! I'm impressed that you did it.
I wouldn't worry too much about your finishing position. I wouldn't have been able to even finish the first 1/4 of the marathon, and neither would at least 85% of the people in our age group (you know, us fat asses who didn't even sign up for a marathon).
Posted by: Unreasonable Man at October 31, 2005 12:03 PM
Congrats!! Did your IT Band bother you during the race? What was the best way that you found to get over your IT Band injury?
Posted by: loyal reader at October 31, 2005 12:39 PM
I've experienced that shoulder and arm pain before--I attributed it, actually, to a stitch in my upper lungs/torso muscles from not breathing deep enough while I ran.
Not that I've ever (or will ever) run a marathon. Congratulations to you! To me you are a Superman!
Posted by: care at October 31, 2005 12:55 PM
I think it's awesome that you did the marathon! Congratulations! (it's so not sad -- stop saying that)
Posted by: Katxena at October 31, 2005 05:14 PM
Yay! That's amazing. I'm proud of myself when I run more than 3 miles -- I can't imagine the discipline required for a marathon. Wow.
(pats on the back)
Posted by: j9 at October 31, 2005 07:43 PM
Congrats! I don't care where you finished, just having the guts to run a marathon and finish is impressive enough. You had nice pacing too. The high and low mile splits weren't that far apart considering how far you were running. Next year you'll get that average down below 11:00 and have a best of around 8:00.
Did you feel the runner's high at any point?
Posted by: Steve at October 31, 2005 11:21 PM
Congrats! You've earned the right to eat nothing but glorious starch for a week! I reccomend wearing the medal to a grocery store as well. Preferably when you are wearing a business suit.
Posted by: Amy Dieterich at October 31, 2005 11:47 PM
Congratulations. Nice pictures, too. So I guess you'll be running these every couple of months now, eh?
Posted by: washburn at November 1, 2005 10:44 AM
Congrats!! Regardless of how long it took, completing it is impressive as hell!!
Posted by: Dave! at November 1, 2005 08:33 PM
Aw thanks everyone. I was starting to think not a single soul was reading this thing anymore b/c I hadn't received a single comment on this post, but then I found all these great comments got stuck in the junk bin! Whoops!
To answer a couple of questions: I don't know if I felt the "runner's high," exactly. I felt elated in the first few miles and those fast miles through the middle (say, 5-15) felt awesome. I felt pretty good again on the bridge and was in sort of a zen trance for the last two miles, so yeah, there were definitely some serious emotional almost spiritual moements involved. Plus, even though it sounds kind of like torture if you haven't done it, pushing yourself through something like this is fun and exciting enough to be sort of high of its own.
The IT band: I learned some stretches for that and after it really started hurting in July I took things easy for a while (too easy, I think, but that's another story). I also got one of those rubber straps to wrap around my leg to put pressure on the IT band and reduce the rubbing -- tremendously helpful. The problem is that after more than 8-10 miles the thing will get all sweaty and start sliding out of place so you have to keep adjusting it. Not cool, but better than the pain.
Next marathon? Every couple of months? Um, I don't really think so. I'm pretty sure I'd like to do it again, and if I could get my times down to 8-11 minutes/mile as Steve suggests, that would be pretty cool. However, I'm not going to commit to anything for sure just yet. Gotta make it through a trial and the MPRE this week and then I'll see where things stand...
Posted by: ambimb at November 2, 2005 08:21 AM
You should be proud. As you and I know marathons are no easy feat, plus now you have something to build on. Keep it up!
www.charronrunning.blogspot.com
Posted by: James at November 12, 2005 05:48 PM
You did what others only could dream of, be proud. I running the MCM for the first time next year, hope to see you at the finish line.
SEMPER FI
Posted by: Slaw at December 6, 2005 10:03 PM
