Catching up- Marathon

July 24th- the Pioneer Day Deseret News Marathon. I got up at 2:50am to get ready to be at the Energy Solutions Arena by 3:40am to catch the shuttle to the top of East Canyon. At the starting line on the border of Salt Lake County, it was pretty dang cold and windy and Janet and I huddled inside of the tent waiting for the starting gun. I told myself I would try and make it to the half-way point (i.e. 13.1 miles) and see from there. We ran the first few miles (as in about 5) downhill, had a couple of miles of flatness and then we had to run up Big Mountain. When I saw the incline, I wanted to stop. Seriously, just stop right there. There was a powerade station right before the hill and then we had to start up. My strategy was to run along the painted line by the road margin (that's not the right word but I'm blanking on the real one) and just watch the ground just ahead of my feet. If you do this, you don't notice how steep the road is. Right at the top there was a photographer to do "official" race photos. After the big climb, we went downhilll for a few more miles until we got out of Emigration Canyon and then we had to run through neighborhoods and along busy streets. I was doing pretty well until about mile 17 when Janet started getting bad cramps and I tried to wait for her, but then it got to be too painful to run and stop and jog and stop. Sadly, I had to leave her and just keep going by myself. After that, going along Foothill Dr. up to the U and then down to S. Temple I was doing ok, just plugging along, jamming to my Marathon iTunes mix until I hit mile 23. I totally hit the wall.

Someone asked me what "hitting the wall" feels like and I responded that pretty much it feels like you ran full speed into a brick wall and all of a sudden your whole body hurts from the tips of your toes to the roots of your hair and you'd like nothing better than to just collapse on the ground and start crying. Yeah, pretty much it's one of the worst feelings in the world. But, at mile 23, you have 3.2 left to go and you can't stop. I finished the race in 5:29:37 or something close to it. I had hoped to finish in 5 hours, but, you know, I was really, really, really, really glad to have it be done, get my medal for finishing and have a cold bottle of water.

Will I do another marathon? Maybe. Right now though, I'm thinking half marathons are a better way to challenge myself without feeling like I'd keel over for three days afterwards!