One Marathon Down...

The day before the race Jennifer and I drove up to Ogden and met up with Joe and Brandi Heywood, our friends of about 13 years. We were much younger then and Joe had a bit more hair. Joe and I worked on the grounds construction crew together. I spent the majority of my time painting the lines on the football field and practice fields. Joe and I were putting up some railroad ties outside of the Manwaring center one day when Joe's cousin came to say hi. She introduced us to Brandi who Joe ended up marrying. 13 years later and each of us have 4 kids and we're running Marathons. After our time at Rick's, we ended up in the same Married student ward at BYU and were actually home teaching companions for a semester or two. We use to play basketball pretty regularly at the church and I don't think either one of us had any idea we'd be running Marathons a few short years later. Distance running has never been our forte.

Anyhoo, we met up with Joe and Brandi and picked up our packets. I was pleased with the shirt they gave us, but I had to return it and get a smaller size. Fully fed, and fully hydrated I weighed about 166 lbs at the starting line. At the end of the race I was about 159. We drove up the canyon to the top of the course and then slowly drove back down to get a feel for where I would spend the majority of the following day.

I slept as long as I could that night. I went to bed at 10 and woke up around 4:30. I met Joe at the shuttle around 4:55 with him in a panic. He'd been there for about 25 minutes and thought I'd slept through my alarm. No such luck. We rode in the dark with about 50 other very sleepy Marathoners up to the starting stable. They had a couple dozen barrels full of wood that they fired up to keep us warm. I had to stand in line for the port-o-potty for about 20 minutes before the race. Since Joe had run one Marathon previously, he was the cagey veteran that was giving me advice to calm my jitters. Strangely enough, I didn't really have any. When the cannon sounded Joe took off and I started the most pleasant run I'd ever had. We'll, the first 10 miles or so anyway. For the first half of the run I was having a great time. I wasn't trying to beat everybody else, I was just running along looking at the scenery, peering over the side of the road to the river below, talking to some of the early morning spectators and enjoying a beverage every mile or two.

At about mile 10 or so there was a woman sitting on the side of the road with her husband ringing a cowbell and cheering folks on. I said to her, "Do you know what this Marathon needs?" Reply, "What?" Answer, "A little more cowbell!" I don't think she got the Saturday Night Live reference, but it gave me a chuckle. There were people all up and down the course cheering us on holding up signs, ringing cowbells, giving us stuff to drink and eat, all in the middle of a beautiful canyon setting.

I felt great for quite a bit of the race. I'd say I started to struggle at about 16 miles or so. I kept running until about mile 20-21 though which is where I started the walking. I walked about 30-40% of the rest of the race due to sore and just flat out tired quads. My lungs felt fine and my calves could have gone on forever, but my quads had just lost their bounce. I finished in about 4:44. I took about 1 min to go to the bathroom at about mile 8 but I stopped my watch while I was in there. My watch showed 4:43:59 when I crossed the finish line. The computer chip on my shoe showed 4:44:59 so I guess my bathroom break was exactly one minute.

At about mile 23 one of the aid stations was handing out sliced watermelon. That was a little piece of heaven. Ice cold and tasty. When I crossed the finish line they gave me a beautiful finisher's medal. At that point I had about 6 minutes to check out of our hotel. I climbed the barricade and gingerly walked to our hotel about 2 blocks away. There was no elevator at our end of the hall so I climbed the stairs, some on my hands and knees. When I got into the room Jennifer checked out over the phone while I attempted to take off my clothes to have a quick shower. It was difficult to get off the floor.

After we got some food, my mom dropped Jennifer and I off at the airport. We flew to Seattle for 3 days of house-hunting. The ones with stairs took a bit longer to check out. Jennifer pampered me all week. She gave my quads a few much needed massages. The balls of my feet were nearly as bad, and they have hurt a little longer. The pain in my quads was gone by Tuesday morning and the Pain in my feet was gone by Wednesday.

I went on a bike ride yesterday for 4 miles. It felt good to get the blood flowing again. I've got myself on another running schedule in order to run the Teton Dam Half-Marathon in Rexburg, ID on June 14th. That gives me 4 weeks after my Marathon to prepare. This first week has been primarily rest. I'll bike some tomorrow and maybe run a slow 2 miles. The last 5 miles of the Marathon may have been difficult, but I'm willing to do it again.

I thought that I would train for and run a Marathon just so I could say I had done it and then say goodbye to running. But running is in me now. I don't know how it got there, but at this point I think it would be hard to let it go.