It's been four weeks. And I am not yet recovered. Overall, I feel fine. But when I run, ride, race, do anything physical, my legs say "No thank you." and when I continue, they say "I SAID NO THANK YOU!"
Race day started very early. 4 am early. To ensure the individual racers don't get tangled up with the relay racers, they bumped race starts by about 1/2 an hour, which means my wave went off at 6:35 am.
It was a beautiful start to the day, but windy. Windy windy windy! When you swim endurance, it's great if you can use a long glide stroke, which really conserves your energy. But when it's windy, you just get pushed all over the place. It seemed like every time I looked up to site, making sure I was on course, I wasn't. Pushed constantly. I was never concerned about not finishing the swim, and in fact, I had swam some amazing times for 2.0 miles, so I was really hoping for a great time. For the swim, 2.4 miles, I wanted 1:10-1:15. what I got was 1:27. I still felt great while swimming, and I exited the water feeling pretty good. Despite how I might have looked.
Really, I felt great!
Once I passed the timing mat and hit the grass, 3 volunteers told me to lie down. I did as I was told. 1 held my shoulders and the other two ripped my wetsuit right off. It was the fastest I've ever gotten out of my suit. I grabbed my bag and ran into the changing tent. Another volunteer said hi, took my bag and started asking me what I wanted. I couldn't answer her right away, so she dumped everything out, handed me my towel and started lining up the things she knew I would need: Shoes, socks, helmet, glasses. I started putting on my cycling gear, went to grab my left shoe...MY BUCKLE WAS MISSING! I do believe I might have dropped an F-bomb. I quickly did the calculation in my head "could I ride 112 with only a down stroke on my left foot. Yes, but it would suck and hurt and I would regret it". I began to think that perhaps my day was done right there. But I took a breath and I remembered that it was on my shoe when I put it into the bag. It was there somewhere. I immediately yelled at the volunteer to stop what she was doing, stop moving stuff, we needed to find that damn buckle! I picked up my arm warmers, and there it was. And praise little baby jesus, the screw was still in it. I now just needed to get to my bike, get my multi-tool and it would be fine. I finished getting ready, ran to my bike, fixed my #$^&$$%#$ buckle and headed off for 112 miles of...fun.
And off I went. Kirk and I had arranged where I would see them as I headed out, so I was able to say Hi and get personal cheering as I went out of town!
This was heading down in the first 40 miles. Having pre-driven the course, I knew what was coming, which is invaluable. As I hit the 40 mile mark and made the right turn to start climbing up Richter pass, I thought "Oh good, the 'easy' part of the ride is over". Shift down, shift down, shift down, shift...crap, I'm out of gears. I guess I climb in this one. I just climbed at my pace, with no thoughts of doing anything other than getting to the top of this climb.
Once over the top, with a quick descent, I moved into a section that I have referred to three different ways: the Holy Rollers, the Seven Sisters, and my personal favorite, and the one I will use, the Seven Bitches. None of them alone are that much and they all kind of had these nice little descents off of them, but when you string them together, with just enough space between them so you get NO benefit of your speed from the descent, they really do begin to grind on you. My coach had warned me about this so I was prepared. It became my personal journey to mow them down, one by one. I got through this and then entered perhaps my darkest moments on the bike. Body language says much.
It was a relatively flat-ish section, heading into the town from which we head out to Bike Special Needs. Special Hell. That is what it was. Getting to the town just seems to take forever. Once you are there and you've started out on the out and back to the pick up, you start seeing other racers, who are AHEAD OF YOU coming out of special needs. Oh yes, you get about 4 miles or so of racers going in the opposite direction of you. Did I mention THEY ARE AHEAD OF YOU? Insult to injury. As I rolled into the pick up, the woman in front of me manages to dump her bike just at the turn around, so some quick navigation was needed but I managed to find my bag, get my snickers bar and coke and choke it down. I wasn't hungry at all, the entire time on the bike, so I was forcing myself to eat the whole ride. I ate exactly what I had trained with, peanut butter nutella waffle sandwiches. I now hate them. Quick bathroom break and back on the bike to finish this stupid ride. As I'm now rolling out I am looking at the people heading in, knowing that they may be in the position I was, so I cheered for them, told them to keep going, keep pedaling, you're almost there! I think I might have sung to someone. Anything to get them to smile and to get out of my own head.
From here I start the last of the two climbs. I am well over 1/2 way done, and I'm beginning to think "you know, I'd be perfectly fine if I stopped after this ride. I've done more today then many people do in a lifetime. I've accomplished a lot, I could live with not finishing this thing." It was a dark time in my head. Up up up, shift down shift down shift down shift....crap. I'm out of gears again. At the top of the 2nd climb there was a fair amount of people, everyone yelling and cow-belling. It perked me up a bit, but my cranky pants were on pretty firmly and weren't budging. The second climb flattens out at the top, and then has this little descent which can fool you into thinking you were done. You're not done. There is one last little bump to get over and then you descend back into town. As I crested this second bump, I was with about 5 other riders. I am actually a pretty good descender, so I cranked up my pace and kind of took off. I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was with me. No one. Nada, empty space behind me. I looked back in front of me just in time to see the sign signaling the 8.5% grade for the next 3 kilometers. As I picked up speed, I stopped pedaling and just flew! AH HELLS YEAH! As I passed a couple sitting on the hood of there car cheering, I just looked at them and went "WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!" going about 40 miles per hour! I heard them cheering and laughing. That descent managed to wrestle those cranky pants off of me and push out any doubts I had about finishing. At that moment I realized I could walk the damn marathon and I would finish within the time cut off.
I rolled into town, it was quite the party going on. Bands were playing, people were everywhere cheering. The professionals had already finished. Bully for them, bring on that F'ing marathon!
I get into T2, pick up my bag and go into the tent. This change is not stressful at all. But I needed sunscreen. I had it in my T1 bag, but nothing in my T2. Oh, that's okay. They'll do it for you! I come out of the tent and say Sunscreen! and look to my right. Standing there are three women wearing gloves. Between them are disposable turkey roasting pans, filled with sunscreen. They simple dip their hands in and go to town. I burst out laughing. It was so funny to me at that moment. Out of transition I go and start my run.
I'm not a pretty runner. As I'm heading out of town, I see Kirk and the kids. I stop and say hi, and attempt to tell them the story of my cycling shoe. Race Brain. I had Race Brain. I couldn't string two words together to save my life. I was doing fine physically. I was hydrated, I was medically stable. I just had race brain.
The photographers even managed to catch me with both feet off of the ground at one point.
And I begin. 26. 4 miles of running...and walking. I ran 3 minutes and walked 1 minute for much of the marathon. But there were times in which I just walked. I found it really beneficial to walk and talk with people. It got me out of my head and allowed me to focus on them and not how I was feeling. And I definitely was feeling much at that moment.
As the sun started to go down, I had changed my goal of just finishing to finishing without needing to get a glow stick on course. It's funny how you can make yourself push harder just by moving the line a little bit farther.
I met some amazing people while completing this marathon. The best though had to be this guy towards the end of the race. He was running with his wife on the road coming into town. I was just behind them when I heard one of the course marshals say to his wife "I'm sorry but you can't run with him. He can be disqualified for it and I would hate that!". She jumped out onto the side walk and he immediately started walking. I run up to him and I said "You'll run with me now". He looked at me and said "No way I can keep up with an athletic 24 year old!". To which I laughed and said "Neither can I. Good thing for you I'm 44." We both chuckled and he started to run again.
After about 4 cones he started to walk again and was talking about how this wasn't worth it. He had a tattoo on his should of the IM symbol. I thought I would encourage him so I said "You see that symbol? After this you're going to put a 'x2' next to it!". He looked at me and said "Times 2? Times 2? Try 37. This is my 38th." To which I said "DAMN I am running with a legend!" I'm not sure I encouraged him to finish or just pissed him off enough to finish! He was great. We ended up running/walking together for about 1 mile.
As you come into the finishing stretch, the course is designed to taunt you. You make a right, run 1 block and you can see the finish line to your right. But no, you get to turn left and run to end of that road, turn around a cone and come all the way back before you get to finish. It's probably no more than 2 kilometers, but DAMNIT! I wanted to be done! As I made the left, Kirk was there and he yelled that he and the kids wanted to cross the finish line with me. That put some spring in my step! I really tried to run the last two kilometers, but I just didn't have it in me. I ended up walking some, then running, then walking. Both sides of the course at this point are lined with people, cheering, ringing cowbells, shouting my name.
As I approached the last 1/2 kilometer or so, kirk and the kids jumped in and we held hands running down the red carpet. Apparently I was running too fast because Kirk yelled at me to slow down! I was just so excited. And then there it was. The banner. I had seen how the pros go through the banner. They don't run, they pick it up and hold it over their heads. That's what I wanted, so that's what I did!
I have never felt more proud of myself then at that moment.
I no longer doubt my body's ability.
I am no longer a sometime athlete.
I am an athlete.
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