Well, yesterday was D-Day . . . or M-Day, as it was. Needless to say, it was no walk in the park. The atmosphere was electric and the entire race day was quite an experience. Out of the gate, I was smoking. Iriquois Park had nothing on me, especially with the running Elvis’ running along and encouraging us! My goal was to complete the marathon in 4 hours, and I felt good the first few miles and effortlessly caught up to the 3:50 pace group around mile 6 or 7. I was just cruising for the next few miles until we got to mile 12 where the mini runners split from teh full marathon runners. Talk about a lonely feeling. It seemed like all the excitement and pageantry, and even the water stops, left with the mini runners. Of 12,000 participants, only 1,500 or so were taking the right hand turn for the full marathon. Still, I actually felt good. Until about mile 16 or 17, where I started to get a very painful cramp in my right quad. When I stopped at a water station to pull it up and stretch it, my right hamstring immediately locked up. I straightened the leg ASAP and tried to hobble on and get back into a groove. About that time David showed up for some encouragement, but the cramp was not receding. Then about mile 18, it happened. The sharp pains, all of a sudden, took my left leg as well and I went down. That’s right, down to the ground! Fortunately, we were in the park and I tucked and rolled into some grass. I had a couple of people offer for help, but I just tried to pop up like nothing had happened. Obviously, the first thing I looked for was to see who all saw me and the pop back up. When I did get to my feet (legs still stiff as boards) I put my hands on my head to get my breath and try to walk it off. Boom, my biceps started to cramp! My thoughts were, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better, so you better get moving!” I just thought if I could convince myself I wasn’t cramping that the pain would go away. Unfortunately, such tricks are not always effective. I was, however, able to keep plodding along for the most part, and after keeping an average split time of about 8:45 over the first 17 pre cramp miles, still finish the race in just over 4 hours and 6 minutes. This race was probably the most physically and mentally demanding 4 hours I have ever experience and I could have done it, or done it as well without the support of my teammates and some special fan support at the entrance of the bridge. I enjoyed how the course had us crossing other runners on the bridge because seeing my teammates on that bridge really helped push me on to finish strong, and finish strong I did. I don’t know how fast I was really moving, but that last 100m or so, I felt like I had been shot out of a cannon! This whole experience has been really remarkable and aside from the great selfish things that this team can take away like the feeling of accomplishment, better physical health (after we recover), comaraderie, etc), we are going to end up having raised probably $14,000+ for children at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Words cannot express the pride that I have for my 9 teammates. Great job, everybody!
April 27, 2008...8:54 pm
26.2 – Like nothing else . . .
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