First Place Desire In The Backwards Marathon

I did it. Crossing the finish line sometime around one o’clock in the afternoon, completing twenty-six point two miles: my first marathon. The sense of accomplishment is indescribable, the array of emotions you go thru over the course of the race, it’s all something I’ve never felt during any other competition, and it’s something I don’t think you can understand until you’ve done it yourself.

However, I didn’t feel as good as I hoped during my marathon. As I stated in my previous post, I felt so ready for this, spending four months preparing, but there are a few factors which I feel inhibited me a bit making me do as well as I hoped.

My typical pre-race routine consists of stretching and meditating while listening to music blasting through my headphones, mentally preparing and getting myself pumped. (I’ve found artists like Rage and Rise Against and Strike Anywhere, bands of a political nature, get me the most energized.) This did not happen.

I had to make a mile trek to the starting line due to the massive back up on the 101/110 freeways trying to get to Dodger Stadium. I missed the start of the race while I was stuck waiting in line for my pre-race constitutional. I had to fight through the runners who had already begun because the first mile of the race was around the stadium and the startling line was in the center of the loop. As expected, my heart-raced, pumping adrenaline through the miles of my mile veins, a feeling I am rather familiar with from my time as a collegiate varsity rower. However, not being able to relax at the starting line before the race messed me up mentally a bit.

Since it was my first marathon, the training regimen was new to me, and I think I tapered a little too much before race day. I felt amazing when my long runs reached distances of up to twenty miles, but because my last week of training never broke the four-mile barrier, I think I lost my distance running edge.

I had to maintain my cool for the first five miles, which I spent fighting through the sixteen-minute pacers, to get to a place where I could get into a rhythm. The field didn’t really open up until about halfway though the course, somewhere around Hollywood and Highland.

My exhaustion kicked in around mile seven or eight, much earlier than I expected and way too early for the amount of training I did. Also, the important night sleep, two days prior to take off, didn’t really go so well and I didn’t sleep well or long enough.

Holy shit did I hit the wall. I was warned the hardest couple of miles usually pop up around the twenty-mile marker. For me it was mile twenty-one: The VA hospital. I needed to stop to use the rest room, and after I couldn’t move again. My knees locked and didn’t want to bend. I had to walk like a quarter mile to get the joints moving again. The fight to get my momentum back was brutal, climbing slowly up hill; the only thoughts in my head were, “Fuck this. I’m never doing this again. This is a once and done deal for me. I’ll finish this, but never again.” I felt like I was running though mud. I wanted to stop and walk and sit and crash right there on the road. I battled my way through mile twenty-two and twenty-three up hill on San Vicente. Our names were on our bibs, so people seeing the dismay on my face, screamed my name and supported me up the last incline.

Then something happened. Mile twenty-four. I was exhausted, beaten up, but not beaten. I made a promise to myself passing under the mile-marker I was going to finish strong, running across the finish line. I don’t know where it came from, but I must have had a secret stash of adrenaline, because my body kicked into gear. I practically sprinted those last two point two miles. I can’t believe my legs carried me the way they did.

After way over four hours of running, with sweat streaming down my face, a look of pure fatigue, my legs burning with lactic acid, and a fist in the air, I crossed the finish line.

I ran passed all six points: Dodger Stadium, City Hall, The Walk of Fame, The Sunset Strip, Rodeo Drive, and the Santa Monica Pier.

I ran from the stadium to the sea.

I ran across the entire city of Los Angeles.

I am still in awe of what I did last weekend. It’s pretty unbelievable and I actually did it. I ran a fucking marathon. The athletes who run them for serious competition, my hat is off to you (the men’s winner did it in a time of like two hours and five minutes which is stupid fast). Anyone who finishes a marathon deserves my upmost respect. It’s an amazing accomplishment, and it takes more dedication and heart than I ever thought possible. I am very proud of myself for going through all of the training and finishing the race. It’s something I never thought I would do, or could ever do.

And, goddamnit it, I want to run another one.

I have worked and will keep working... To keep the tradition of my one true motive in life... Music…