Uh…HELLO Juls. This *is* a marathon. Of course you are going to feel tired.
I don’t know how I got it into my head that running a marathon at easy pace (instead of race pace) would be “easy.” No matter what the pace, it’s still 26.2 miles. That’s not easy. Throw in a significant amount of downhill, albeit with a scattering of rollers intermingled, and a nice tailwind and…guess what? It’s still HARD.
But…I LOVED IT!
Official Time: 4:36:20
When plans fall through it can be hard to see the other side of the equation. Especially when the plans are ones for which you’ve had your heart set on seeing through to the end. But alas, plans do occasionally do just that. Because, after all, life happens.
In my case, it was the plans for staying at my nursing school buddy’s home for marathon weekend which fell through. I had to remind myself that I knew from the get-go that her daughter’s out-of-state basketball tournament might be an issue. Why wouldn’t she go? Because of me? I guess I wanted to believe that there would be other reasons why she would need to stay in the Boston area. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
I kept looking for the follow up email that said “April Fool’s” but I knew I wasn’t coming. My friend is just not like that. Still, I cannot fathom how we could go wrong in the communication here. I can’t dwell on it. It wasn’t all her fault; I am partly to blame as well.
It was hard for me not to take on the victim mentality. I was fighting the urge to curl up in a ball and murmur “why, oh why me?” It would do me no good. I had to get a grip.
Certainly, I’m not the only one to encounter things not going as-planned. The Big Sur International Marathon organizers had to come up with a Plan B when a significant portion of Highway 1 fell into the Pacific Ocean last month. The decision to change course and have many of the events run an out-and-back course instead of the planned point-to-point was communicated to registrants 2 short days after the fall. I can only guess what sort of murmuring must have been going on in the race director’s mind (if not out loud) in those short 48 hours. “Why, oh why…”
I woke up to gray skies and a steady stream of continued rainfall. It wasn’t what I wanted to see first thing in the morning. Certainly not, first thing in the morning of my last 20-miler. I silenced the alarm and rolled over in bed — AWAY from the window. It was sort of game with Mother Nature. “I’ll close my eyes for 1 hour”, I suggested, “and, when I open them, please make the rain be gone.”
But Mother Nature was not playing along. An hour later the rain was coming down even harder. I went downstairs for a cup of coffee and returned to the warmth of my bed to send out a few text message of inquiry. Was ANYONE running today? Or was I the only crazy one? There was no response. Apparently, everyone is sleeping in today.
In desperation, I tried to move my hair appointment from Sunday afternoon to Saturday morning but to no avail. So, I resigned myself to running… as planned… only IN the rain.
I was struggling to gather some enthusiasm as I located all of my long run garb when myPhone began singing a familiar tune. It would appear that I was NOT the only crazy one willing to run in the rain. I was thrilled at the prospect of having company for the 1st 12 miles of my run.
Starting out, it would appear that we were the ONLY crazies out that day. But as the time and miles passed, we saw more and more runners and cyclists out there with us. Everyone was bright and cheery — including me. It was so refreshing.
The sun even peaked out from time to time just to see what we were doing. We had a hard time pretending not to notice. You know, we’ve been having a lot of WET these past many days. I didn’t even try to pretend that I didn’t see it leave and the rain return.
But, by then, I’d run the majority of my miles with company. I bid farewell to my friend, changed into a dry shirt and jacket, and returned to the road.
When it was all said and done, I’d run my 20+ miles. 20.8 miles to be exact. I returned home, to my hustle and bustle, a whole lot worse for wear. Yes, I was hobbling a bit, thanks to a few bloody blisters. I was also running seriously late for guitar lessons with YaYa. But…I got it done: The long run, guitar, and a load of laundry.