These are my stages, the stages of a guy who has run 3 marathons and not once actually trained or ran nearly enough for one of them. I ran a lot in College and probably should have run a marathon then. But, nope, never did. A few years after and running maybe twice a week and not more than 5 or 6 miles. YES, this is the time and go run a marathon!
The Starting Line
My first marathon, the Chicago marathon, and of course it is hot. It was really hot, and I had kind of trained for this one. My longest run was 12 miles and thought, aww I can push it for 14.2 more miles. This won’t be a problem; I am going to break 3 hours today and qualify for the Boston Marathon. Then I’ll train for that Marathon and run fast.
Thousands of people were out here, and everyone was getting there and shoes on and making sure they all their Gels and everything prepped. I was there, with literally nothing except what I was running in. Not once, had I run long enough to worry about replacing calories. I thought to myself “It doesn’t matter, I’ll just grab what is along the course. They always have gels, drinks, and foods for the runners.
In my narrow mindedness, I thought because I had run for so long that running this race was going to be no problem. I was excited and a little bit nervous. But running a little under a 7-minute pace didn’t seem like it would be that hard.
Mile Six
I was running right along, and much to fast. I went through 6 miles a little over 36 minutes. Close to 6-minute pace. Oh but, this doesn’t feel too fast, I’ll keep this pace and run under 2 hours and 40 minutes! This was what I told myself, I taking fluids at all the stops and hadn’t eaten anything yet but I figured that would be a problem and I would replace calories later into the race.
Halfway
Oh, shoot, Uh, Well, I’m still running 6-minute miles. But I’m struggling to breathe, my legs are tight. Maybe I’ll try to take a gel from one of the stations. “That will help me, it is less than 2 hours I can push through this!”
I was still confident, but I probably should have not been.
Mile 18
Arrggh! I hobble off to the side and try to stretch. Calf cramp in the right leg, okay, all good let’s start running again. Yikes, my left calf now also.
I hit the wall, earlier than expected, both calves cramping, and that gel I took. Well, made my stomach cramp. So I’m dealing with literally 3 different cramps at once. Medical personal is asking me if I need help being brought to a tent. I refuse, I paid all this money. What I wanted to tell them “I’m finishing this damn race no a matter what.” What I told them “Gasp, uhhhh, well, naw, I’m okay, I think.” That answer sounded coherent enough to them that they didn’t bother asking me again.
The end
Well, I have no updates from mile 18 to the finish. The whole thing is a blur. I tried to walk and jog the rest of the way. Every time I tried to jog, the cramp in my calves came back. I walked as tons of people went running by and I realized that just because I ran for so long didn’t mean I could take the marathon on without training for it. It was a whole new beast that I have yet to motivate myself to truly train for.
If you decide you want to run a marathon. While I can say I conquered it, nothing was fun or amusing about this endeavor I basically crawled my way through it. Honestly, I would trade that experience for a lot of different things!