Still Going!

I spent the weekend in Redding, CA. just over the mountains from my old stomping ground in Arcata.
As many of you know I have been bothered by an injury for some months now. It really caught up with me during the Seattle marathon. Since then I have been doing my physical therapy and my regular gym workouts, but I have had to limit my running to short, flat, slow runs. This frustrates me. I like hills, and distances. I won’t go so far to say that I like running fast, but I like to be able to open up and stretch out my legs occasionally.
Since the end of November my longest run was 6 miles although most days I ran between 0 and 4 miles. Not impressive. I can’t believe I thought I could do a marathon and more remarkably, I can‘t believe I actually could do a marathon with this lack of training (That’s why they call me a maniac).
Initially I was thinking I would start out and see how far I could run before I had to stop, but I don’t like quitting. About two weeks prior to the event it occurred to me that walking it might be a lot easier and increase my chances of finishing. Walking around the day before I could feel my glute getting weak and tired and it dawned on me that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try some distancing walking in the future to keep my body in better shape for this sort of insanity. In case I forget to mention it later, let me confess that I was taking therapeutic levels of ibuprofen the day before and day of in an attempt to keep my hips, knees and ankles functioning. I actually tried all sorts of voodoo to keep myself moving. I wore Phiten titanium patches on my left hip and ankle starting two days in advance. I used titanium lotion for those days too. The night before and day of the marathon I used an all natural lotion that reeked of mints and is supposed to energize your muscles. I was hoping for miracles.
The day before the marathon I was checking out the finish area. The race wraps along the Sacramento River and finishes at the Sundial Bridge (you can check out some pictures on the website but most of them show it in considerably nicer weather than we saw). A really beautiful structure, paved with glass and lit from beneath so it glows at night. A great place for finish line photos…except for the ominous signs posted at either end “slippery when wet”. The forecast was predicting a deluge, naturally the day before the marathon was beautiful. I took advantage of this time to wander around the Turtle Bay and Exploration park and botanical gardens. The gardens were really something, admittedly the middle of winter isn’t really the best time to see this particular garden, but they have art throughout the gardens. They had pyramids made of painted tiles, A giant mosaic bench that wrapped around a fountain, and (my favorite) a structure called lookout house which was constructed out of branches and vines.


Day of race we park at the Sundial bridge and Turtle Bay Exploration parking lot, hop on the buses and start one of my favorite parts of running (second only to carb loading), meeting other runners and hearing how they all came to be at this race. I met a woman who was running her first race after a 5 year battle with a lung disease, and a boy from the Seattle area who was doing this marathon as part of his senior project (chosen because it didn’t interfere with his High School track schedule). I ran into a few Marathon Maniacs. One older gentleman who said he had always been an avid runner, but it wasn’t until his good buddy Bob Dolphin pushed him into it that he joined the Maniacs. It is always remarkable to learn how many people know Bob and Lenore Dolphin. The man I ended up walking with had seen Bob at a marathon recently, didn’t know who he was but remembered the shirt “where the Dolphin has been” with the hundreds of marathons that were listed. Bob turned 80 in October (celebrating by running the Portland marathon) and has just logged his 460th Marathon. The man is truly an inspiration.

The rain was coming down gently at the start line, most people decided to stay in the buses until we were kicked out 10 minutes before the start. There might have been 200+ people signed up for the race but there were no more than 150 at the start…It is just now occurring to me that a number of people participated in the relay, so perhaps the other 50 didn’t get scared away by the rain but rather were waiting at the relay hand offs. I can’t verify any of this because the website doesn’t have a link to any results page.

I was going to describe the course, but they have a great description with pictures here. The sunshine is misleading, we saw nothing of the sort, and we saw none of the views they show. To get a better idea of what we saw, just look at the pavement and the brush. The course was beautiful even without the views. As a Seattle native I appreciate the rain. I tend to overheat while running, being constantly doused with water helps keep the temperature in a comfortable range. The wind didn’t present much of a problem for most of the race, but when it hit, it hurt.

The initial downhill brought us to the dam. As I jogged across I glanced over the side, big mistake. Hundreds of feet below us were the rivers and land. I quickly ran to the other side and was comforted to see that the lake was only 50 feet below us on this side. I am not a huge fan of bridges. Especially when they seem to be floating thousands of miles above land. We crossed a number of bridges in this run.

I notice I keep using or wanting to use the word ‘run’. except for the last few miles, very little of what I did could be considered ‘running’. I sped walked, shuffled and jogged. I suppose my run at the end might not have fit in some people’s definition of running. I found an interesting piece by Travis, who “runs a lot and likes video games” discussing the difference between running and jogging. He claims it is the mindset that sets the two apart. He says the runner is the person who is training to compete or improve their athletic ability, “If they are pushing themselves in order to increase their athletic potential for a later competition, then it is running. I don't care if they are running relaxed at 7:30 pace, or ripping through intervals at 5:30. Even the slow painful recovery trot in between workout sets count. It is ALL running.”
Rock on Travis with your relaxed 7:30 pace! I might have seen something under 8 minute/miles while launching myself down steep hills, but it still took everything I had to get those numbers on the clock for a split second. Regardless, he seems to agree that I was running, this being a “painfully recovery trot” that worked to boost my confidence that I could keep running.
I really needed this boost, I have been feeling very upset since the Seattle Marathon, concerned that I wouldn’t be able to do these distances anymore. I love the marathon distance, I start to feel really good around mile 13, like I have finally finished my warm up and am ready to let my body play a little more.

My body was responding really well to the course. It was mostly flat and downhill, the inclines I had to push through some pain, but I was always rewarded with a downhill after. I had flash backs of Peru, climbing up forever and thinking you had reached the top of the mountain only to watch the clouds part on a peak another 50 feet above you. Not that this happened on this course, but the heavy clouds worry me.

Around mile 21 some course officials were cheering for us by number “Doing great 104!” “Almost there 27!” . “27, why I’ll be 27 on Tuesday,” I remark to the gent I am walking with. “Tuesday the 19th? I’ll be 68.” Yup, couple of stubborn Capricorns bringing up the rear.

Around mile 23 I parted ways with the man I now knew as #27, and started my most concentrated effort at running. Despite what I may go through during the rest of the marathon I am driven by deeply ingrained instinct to always finish strong. I picked off one guy almost immediately, I could tell from a distance that his legs were cramping up and that it was all he could do to keep shuffling along. “Just focus on pizza” I called out as I “breezed” past him with an awe inspiring 10:15 pace. The next few I took were in an out and back section that goes through the botanical gardens, one looked to be minutes from death (but still looking stylish in his fancy Boston Marathon jacket). The next guy didn’t look like he was hurting, but he was walking, I can only imagine that he was just exhausted, doing what he could to finish at all. Granted, picking off the weak and injured doesn’t give you the same rush as fighting it out with a matched competitor. To be honest though, it is always nice to put a few marks in the road kill column.

Turns out walking a marathon leaves your body in much better shape. Yes I was sore afterwards and have some aches today, but all in all I don’t think I have ever felt better after a marathon. Definitely worth trying!