St. George Marathoner

After a fitful sleep, I was fully awake at 3:45am. 20 minutes before my alarm went off. Today was the day I had been training for the past five months, and I was very excited. I walked up the stairs to the dark kitchen that was lit only by the St. George city lights out the large windows.

I poured a bowl of honey-nut cheerios, but could only eat three or four bites. I was too nervous to eat, and that was not a great way to start out my morning. I took a shower, put on my running clothes that had been neatly laid out the night before and took a look at myself in the mirror. I was nervous, but I was ready.

Natalie and Taylor jumped in the car to take me down to where the buses shuttle the runners up to the starting line, and about two minutes into the drive I asked Natalie to pull over. Those of you that know me well, know that when I get extremely nervous I also get nauseous. On the morning of my wedding, just before giving my homecoming talk, and while climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro (well that last one may have been more due to the altitude,) but they all resulted in me throwing up.

I didn't realize it at the time, but my marathon was doomed before it began. I arrived at where the buses were congregated and hundreds of anxious runners were in line. I got in the back of the line and started talking with my fellow racers. It was very cool being able to say I was a first time marathoner. I climbed onto the yellow school bus and took the front seat to avoid the chances of compounding my troubles with car sickness.

As the bus climbed through the black and grey hills I chatted with those around me and my spirits started to lift. This was going to be fun. After about 30 minutes I saw some huge spotlights in the distance. We were almost to the starting line. I exited the bus to a rock concert like atmosphere. Music was blasting, bon fires were raging and there were tables full of oranges, bananas, coffee and water. The nausea was subsiding a little bit, so I grabbed a glass of lemon-lime Gatorade and joined my fellow runners alongside one of the closest bon fires. I was able to drink about 4 oz. of Gatorade, but still felt a little queasy.

After warming up by the fire, I waited in the long line for the restrooms, applied anti-chaffe and vaseline as necessary, threw my jacket and pants in the provided bag to the drop-off area and suddenly it was five minutes till race time. I hurridly consumed my Gatorade pre-race GU and found a place in line near the "4 hour" pace. The gun went off, and it took about 5 minutes to cross the starting line. There was great energy, and I had to hold myself back. The energy was inviting me to start fast, but I had a plan. 9:10 during the first half, and then if I was feeling good enough, 8:50 miles during the second half. It was a realistic plan, especially since the St. George Marathon had a second half that had much more downhill than the first half.

I blasted Explosions in the Sky from my MP3 player as I started the run, and the first mile I finished in just over 9 minutes. I was feeling pretty good. The next 4 miles passed the same way, a couple of the miles were downhill, so I really took advantage, clocking a few 8:40 miles. I wasn't drinking very much though, even though I was feeling good, my stomach didn't feel great, but I took sips as I took my walk breaks. I was running the Galloway walk-run method with 4/30 second splits. So basically I was running for 4 minutes then would walk for 30 seconds. During my walk breaks, when I remembered I would drink from the bottles of gatorade I carried on my running belt.

At about 45 minutes in, it was time for me to have a few bites of my Powerbar Triple Threat. I had experimented with a half dozen bars over my long runs, and this was the tastiest and most digestible in my experience. Not today though. I took two bites, but couldn't eat anymore. In retrospect, I should have stopped and walked until I had eaten half of it. This bad decision, along with not drinking enough in the first two hours would come back to bite me.

 At mile 7 we hit the infamous Veyo hill. A monster of a hill rising up over the horizon. I had my strategy set for the hill, I would slow down, move my legs faster, but take smaller strides. There were a lot of runners passing me, but I was confident in my strategy. "You are saving your legs for the second half," I thought to myself. Not worrying at all about the overanxious runners passing me. When I got to the top of Veyo hill I felt a pretty good sense of accomplishment, what I didn't realize is that the next three miles were going to be a steady uphill climb. I was trying to make up from my 10:30 mile while climbing up Veyo, so I kept my miles around 9:00 even though I was going uphill. I should have just slowed down.

At mile 10 or 11 I was finally getting to the top of the series of hills, to the point where it would be almost all downhill for the rest of the race. Unfortunately, I would never be able to enjoy it. The next two miles went by fairly quickly, I was almost to the halfway point and my mile times were very strong. I crossed the halfway point of the marathon (13.1 miles) at just about 2 hour and 2 minutes. Right on schedule for my goal of 4 hours. Only one problem, my legs were really starting to hurt. I had done 20, 22 and 23 mile training runs and my legs always started really hurting by mile 18 or 19, but never this early. Then I had my first surprise, I heard something land behind me- my iPhone had fallen out of my pocket, shattering the screen. It was an omen, this just wasn't my day.

A few minutes later a wave of nausea hit me, and I had to slow down. Maybe if I just walked for a minute? That didn't help. Maybe if I drank some Gatorade? But I was too nauseous. At the next water station I tried to drink a little water but I couldn't really drink much, looking back on it, I guess I was already pretty dehydrated. So I just kept on walking. A sinking feeling hit me, I had just hit a major wall and there were still 12 miles left to run. Nothing in my training runs had prepared me for legs so cramped and dead that I couldn't even run downhill. I was done. My watch read 2 hours 28 minutes and I realized that if I finished at all, it wouldn't be for a long time.

I watched my mile times go from 9 minutes to 12 minutes to 15 minutes. I could normally walk faster than 15 minute miles, but normally my legs didn't feel like they were on fire. I did the math, it might take 3 more hours for me to finish this marathon. Ugh.

Over the next 3 miles I just tried to think positive, but every time I started to jog, the nausea was back. I couldn't afford to throw up again, so I just kept walking. I stopped to stretch next to another casualty of the marathon, and he had these positive words for me,
"I'm retiring from marathons after this. Just hoping I can preserve the little hydration left in my legs to finish the race."
And suddenly it hit me. I was massively dehydrated. It wasn't just that I hadn't been drinking, but that I started the race somewhat dehydrated from throwing up, and hadn't been drinking nearly enough since. So after stretching for a few minutes I started up again, forcing more fluids into me. Over the next 20 minutes I drank maybe 8-10 oz. of water, followed by Gatorade over the next mile. By about mile 21 my legs were still burning, but at least the nausea was gone. I started jogging a little off and on, it wasn't very fun but at least I was moving again.

At mile 23 I saw Natalie, Taylor, Brandon and Annie, Phil, Charlotte as well as Brooke and Spencer. I smiled for the camera, but you might be able to tell it comes across as more of a grimace than a smile. I wasn't having very much fun at this point. It was great to see my family, but so disappointing to be hitting mile 23 a full 25 minutes after I had hoped to finish the entire race. Phil ran with me for a while, but it didn't change the face that my legs were totally dead. Those last three miles were really the toughest. I was fighting just to beat a 5 hour time- and that was pretty disappointing for me.

When I finally hit mile 26 with just .2 miles to go, I saw the crowd ahead and was able to dig down to find a little bit of energy to at least finish strong. They announced my name as I came through gate and I looked up at the time, wondering if my chip time would be more or less than 5 hours. I didn't find out until the next day, but I was 7 seconds over 5 hours. My final time was 5:00:07.

I lifted my arms in the air as I crossed the finish line, even though I wasn't all that thrilled with what had happened. I stepped through the cool mist bridge, had a moment of emotion to reflect on what I had just been through.  I drowned my sorrow with a chocolate milk as I sunk down in the shade of a tree and chatted up a few of the other marathon finishers. This isn't how I had planned it, but at least I had my first marathon under my belt and a personal best that was extremely beatable. It was a strange feeling, this combination of achievement and defeat. Even though I had just finished a marathon, I felt like I still had unfinished business.