The Iron Geek

I feel like I could take on the world right now.  Okay, as long as it doesn’t involve standing, or hell even getting off the couch, but OTHER THAN THAT, I’m ready to take on all-comers!

I just finished my first marathon.  I managed to drag my body over 26.2 miles over insane Georgia hills.  It was an absolute roller coaster of a morning, one that I don’t think that I will forget.  

Here is my detailed race report…

The start was broken up by “corrals” that were based upon your expected finishing time.  I was slotted to start in corral K, based upon my delusional thinking at the time I registered that I would finish the event in 4:45 minutes.  Since I knew that wasn’t going to happen (and because I misread the signs =), I started in corral L, one back.  I was right behind the 5:00 pace team (they run the race at that pace to help the other runners).  In theory, if I wanted to finish in 5 hours, I just needed to stick with them.

I got a chuckle out of a few things while waiting for the start.  First, I had taken a 5-hour Energy just as the gun went off.  When it took 10 minutes to get to the starting line, I really wished that they made 5:10 Energy.  Secondly, my iPod was playing Kings of Leon “Be Somebody” when the gun went off.  I found that very fitting.

The first 7 miles were great.  There were tons of people all running shoulder-to-shoulder.  At the second mile marker (I missed the first), I noticed that I was hitting about an 11:15 min/mile pace, which was about 1:15 slower than I had planned on going out, but it felt good and I decided not to mess with it.  I knew I wasn’t going to break any records today and that it was going to be a long day.  I just decided to go with what felt good.  I thought about reading how the guy who won the Western States 100 (100 mile trail race) and how he started his race walking.

My plan with my coach going into todays race would be to execute a Galloway method race, by which I would run for 11 minutes and then walk for 1 minute.  This is consistent with the way I had practiced my long runs.  I followed this approach consistantly for the first 14 miles.  However, I would not walk if my “walk time” happened to be on a downhill.  Running downhill is almost like walking, so if I hit a split where I was supposed to walk and it was downhill, i just kept running until the next uphill. 

For the first 7 miles, it was fairly crowded.  You often had to pick your spots and be careful to dodge anyone who was walking.  But the crowd was great and the volunteers were carrying some great signs.  My favorite of the day was “Release the Crackin!” and my least favorite was “Too slow to win, too stupid to stop” (Did she really think that was a good idea?)

At just about the 7 mile marker, there was a fork in the road where the half-marathoners went to the left and the full-marathoners went to the right.  I was somewhat surprised to see almost everyone take the left (for the half-marathon). I would later find out that there were almost 11,000 people running the half-marathon and just over 2,000 people running the full!  Once the split happend, things got far more “roomy” and you could pretty much run where you wanted.  The bummer was the the crowds significantly thinned out too.

I continued on my 11/1 approach and managed to score a Personal Record (PR) for my half-marathon with a 2:33 split (5 minutes faster than my last half-marathon!).  I was feeling really good.

But at mile 14, things started to slow down.  There were a lot of hills, and I wasn’t able to run for the full 11 minutes before needing to walk.  I didn’t feel bad, I just wan’t able to run as long, and those damn hills didn’t help!

Then at mile 18, I got a surprise cramp in my left leg, on the back of my thigh, just above the knee.  It seemed to come out of nowhere with very little warning.  I remembered that my coach had told me that cramping is due to poor nutrition and hydration so I immediately took another gel (I carried 12 with me today).  After a 2 minute walk, I felt good again so I started to run again, right into the town of Druid Hills.  (Hint: they don’t call them that because they are flat)

Then, at mile 20, I got a similar but much worse cramp in my right leg.  Again, it caught me by surprise and I came very close to taking a tumble.  A nice spectator came out and handed me a ton of pretzels, telling me that the salt would help.  I found myself dry-mouthing pretzels for the next 1/2 mile to the next aide station.

After that, it was very hard to run without getting cramps.  Even eating more gels and drinking more Gatorade didn’t help.  I could only run on the downhills, and only if I took very small strides and landed on my heel.  If I took a long stride, landed on my forefoot, or ran up a hill, my cramps would kick in.

So I pretty much walked the next 5 miles.  (Bummer).  From this far back in the pack, there are a lot of people walking, especially up these crazy hills.  There was one hill, just passing mile 23 that was insane.  It was like the course designers said (Ah, let’s really screw with them near the finish).  It was an insane hill.  It was on that hill that I ran into someone I knew for the first time.  He’s my banker at my local branch, and he handed me a water.  =)

As I got to the 25 mile marker, I decided to MTFU and run it the rest of the way in.  I had been told that the rest of the run was flat (which it was).  So i turned on my grampa-shuffle and ran the last 1.2 miles.

I let out a scream/howl when I crossed the finish line.  I WAS PUMPED!  I am still in shock that I was able to do it.  Between the pain and the emotion, it was hard fighting back tears as I wandered into a pretty much empty finish area.

My goal time as of last night had been 5 hours and 15 minutes, which is basically double my last half-marathon finish.  At the halfway point, I was on track to finish in 5:06.  But with the cramps, and all of the walking, I finished in 5:53:01.  (2:33 for the first 13.1 and 3:23 for the second 13.1)

But I finished a fucking marathon.  BOOHYAH!

And then I went to Waffle House and ate two full meals.  Next was a long hot bath, and now I’m drinking a beer and watching over my son as he sleeps and I type this blog post.

“Today it was a good day” - Ice Cube