It Can Make A Grown Man Cry

So, it's time to get back to this thing called blogging. I've thought of it often, just haven't done it. I got yelled at the other day for not being on here so I guess I needed that verbal abuse to get my ass in gear. Thanks CC.

Last weekend (June 6th) was the San Diego Marathon that I participated in with TNT again. It was an awesome weekend and fun season as a whole. I'm currently going through my post-season depression with it all being over and I won't see everyone again so I'll write more about that when I have those feelings under control. The race itself, well, lets just say it's one to forget.

Everything started out smoothly and as expected. To be honest, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but more of a hope that it would go smoothly. For a majority of the training season I was battling shin issues so I wasn't able to get the proper amount of miles in. I did a couple of long runs - 17 and one 20 miler - so I at least knew I was going to be able to finish. Just how long exactly and in what condition were very much in the gray area. I started with a teammate I was hoping to pace to a 4:30-4:40 finish time. It was her first marathon and she was hoping for anything under 5 hours, but more towards 4:40. If everything went well I thought she would have a 4:30 in her. As mentioned, everything started fine and we were holding pretty close to 10 minute miles through the first half.

Then came the 2nd half. Why couldn't we just stop halfway through and say "Okay, just double that time and we'll call it good"? About mile 17 my stomach thought it would be a good idea to start revolting. Who knew running a marathon was more about using just your legs and lungs?! The more I ran, the more I thought I was going to hurl so I thought, "hey, now might be a good time to walk for a bit and get my stomach to settle down" so I started walking. Immediately upon slowing, my head thought that since my stomach didn't want to play along then it didn't have to either and got light-headed. Well that's a fine how-do-you-do! I can't run because I'm going to throw up, I can't walk because I get light-headed and I can't stop moving forward because that doesn't get me any closer to the finish line! Needless to say, at some point I told my running partner that I was struggling and for her to take off and do it without me. Sorry Mandy. I chose the lesser of the two evils and ended up walking the majority of those last 9 miles and ran sporadically when I felt up to it (which wasn't much). Long story short, I did end up finishing, but it's been my slowest time out of the 11 marathons I've done and the first one that's been over 5 hours, 5:12 to be exact. Not too happy with that. Sitting in the tent at the Finish area I'll admit to succumbing to my emotions a little and there may have been a tear or two. I'll blame it on the whole body being tired and not knowing what to do. I'm a guy and we're not supposed to cry, right? It took me awhile to come to grips with the whole run and I've accepted it (still not happy with it though). I'll just have to make sure it doesn't happen again. I'll have at least 43 more attempts at this damn distance (42 more states and D.C.)!

To end on a positive note, Mandy did awesome and beat her 5 hour goal! And hers were tears of joy.