It was a cold and damp Midwestern morning in October, a day like any other Midwestern autumn day, except it wasn’t. My alarm trilled inconsiderately at an ungodly hour, and I rolled out of bed, a bed that wasn’t mine, in a city that wasn’t mine, preemptively dressed in a sports bra and running tights. I wiped the sleep from my eyes, noted my foul morning breath with disgust, and then it hit me: in mere hours, I would be outside, in the cold, strapped into running shoes and a stopwatch, running my first marathon in 3 years.
Normally, the revelation of race morning makes my stomach drop, my palms clammy. But this morning, I felt a foreign sense of calm as I taped my feeble knee and swept my hair up into a ponytail. I was about to run 26.2 miles, after years of resigning myself to the fact that I never would again,and I headed to the start line, barely phased.
My first 26.2 miles in 3 years, and I had hardly trained at all.
BACKGROUND
My mom first broached the topic of running a full marathon together nearly a year prior to the race. The race was the Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, and 2018 would be the 30 year anniversary of her very first marathon, which happened to be that very same one. I had run 5 full marathons, but not since my early 20s, when the universe decided to rob me of my youth and strike me down with a foot injury, then an ankle injury, then a knee injury. I still ran, but very conservatively; at the most, I would do a few miles two or three times a week.
The prospect of getting back to running one of my favorite distances was appealing; I was DESPERATE to once again feel that high of stumbling over the finish line, my legs collapsing under me, over two dozen miles behind me.There is nothing like it (and all the people telling me to take up biking or swimming to compensate for not being able to run anymore were out of their minds, or have just never experienced that post-marathon high). After several months of vacillating, I finally took the plunge and paid my $150. It felt like I had sold my soul. At the time of registering, I had just finished a 6 month backpacking trip with my sister Meredith, during which I barely ran at all, and the race was only 4 months away.
Even so, I wasn’t worried. It was almost concerning how nonchalant I felt about this insanely strenuous task I was about to force my body through.
PREPARATION
When I say I didn’t train for this race, I don’t mean that I had never run a day in my life, pried myself out of the Robin-sized indentation of my couch, and ran a marathon. I had run the distance before, and I did a little bit of shorter distance running in the weeks leading up to the race. I found myself running 2 to 4 miles every few days. There was one day in August where I went out and powered through 14 miles with my mother. In September, I embarked on another 3 week trip, this time to the Middle East, where my running shoes didn’t emerge from my bag once. The day after getting back, I ran 15 miles, almost perished, and a week later, I was toeing the start line.
So there you have it. A few short runs, a couple of long-ish runs, and many, many weeks of hiatus, during which I ate whatever local delicacies I encountered and drank a bit too much beer. And not one single speed or strength workout to speak of. For all my other races, I had lifted, run intervals, fit in a long run every single weekend religiously, and rarely did less than 30 miles any given week in the 4 or 5 months leading up to the race. This time, the longest distance I had run in 3 years was 15 miles, and it was grueling, pounded out 8 days prior to race day, completed only after shedding many tears of pain. Most people probably would have thought I was crazy. I decided to have faith in my body.
RACE DAY
I had followed all suggested protocols leading up to the race: hydration, carb-loading, stretching, keeping well rested. I didn’t mentally prepare at all; a girl I had met in Egypt, over a week into traveling sans exercise, told me I was probably going to die. I shrugged, as if what I was doing were actually going to the DMV to get my license renewed: inevitably a pain in the ass, but something I would have to push myself through. Whatever.
I gobbled my pre-race bowl of oatmeal, stuffed my bra with packets of Gu, hugged my boyfriend (who I peacefully acknowledged may never see me alive again), and joined my mom on the starting line. Two bad bitches, taking on the Twin Cities.
Mile 1
We went out very slow, excitedly chatting about the incredible feat we were beginning. A MARATHON! Who would have thought? The weather was cold, much colder than I was used to after several weeks in the deserts of the Middle East, but I had hope that I would warm up. The race was huge, and the field, despite having been separated into corrals, was teeming with excited runners, all of whom probably trained more than me. I know that the first couple of miles in a large race are spent trying to find your rhythm (and swerve in and out of the congestion), so I took my time and tried hard not to think about the 25 miles ahead.
Mile 6
My mom’s boyfriend caught a video of us at mile 6. We are both still in great moods. I had stripped my long sleeve t-shirt and was down to my tank top. I had only done a couple runs over 6 miles in the past several years, so I was surprised at how good I felt.
Mile 13
HOLY SHIT. LITERALLY. I had completely forgotten about runner’s trots. For those of you who don’t know, runners trots are basically when you have explosive diarrhea in your running shorts unless you find a toilet as soon as humanly possible. The wave hit me around the halfway mark, and I was sent into a fit of sweats and convulsions as I tried to hold it in. Halfway through, feeling okay otherwise aside from a slight twinge in the knee , and after all of that, I realized with shame, the thing that was going to kill me wasn’t going to be the distance or the lack of training. It was going to be my own poop.
It took about 11 minutes for me to stop, wait in line at the porta-potty, find that sweet relief, and start back up again. I felt AMAZING! I felt like a new woman! I bounded forward, feeling like I could accomplish anything I put my mind to, even if my time was going to be 11 minutes slower than it could have been! My boyfriend appeared at the sidelines, having rented an electric scooter (and flown over the handlebars in front of a sizable and horrified audience) to meet us on the course. I was so excited to have recovered from the most unpleasant digestive experience of my life that I sprinted up to him and kissed him, sweat and all. Another 13 miles didn’t seem so bad at all.
Mile 20
We had continued on at our very slow pace, but we hadn’t stopped again to use the facilities, and we had been throwing our Gu packets back like they were candy. I looked up, and saw a giant blow-up wall, marking mile 20, where most marathoners hit their “wall.” I have hit a wall in every single marathon I’ve run (some sooner than others). My first marathon, the wall was at mile 20. My fifth, around mile 24. As we came up to the visual representation of that nearly insurmountable physical exhaustion, I felt tired, but not much more tired than I had felt at mile 15. I felt absolutely fine. So fine that I was admiring the gorgeous homes of the neighborhood we were passing through, making mental notes of the addresses to look up their values on Zillow later.
I was actually able to laugh and take delight in the wall that the race organizers had left for us, because no one understands the nuances of long distance running like other long distance runners, I was still finding humor in things. Finding humor in anything at mile 20 of a marathon is almost unheard of. Usually you’re about ready to swing your fist into anyone who gets a little too close and/or burst into hysterical sobs and fall to the pavement. For the first time, I thought that I was actually going to avoid that wall, and I was grinning from ear to ear.
Mile 22
WELP. I WAS WRONG. Mile 22 is when I hit my wall, the first time in the entire race where I actually began to acknowledge my pain. My legs were exhausted, each one feeling like a ton of lead had been pumped into the muscles, and the rest of my body, and my mind and my spirit, was fatigued. I just wanted it to be over. I turned to my mom and said, “I truly forgot how stupidly long 26.2 miles is.” And it really is. After 22 miles, it truly feels like it may never end.
I ate two Gu packets in a row, knowing that it probably wasn’t the smartest idea and that my stomach might rebel, but I was determined to not have to do any walking after I had already lost so much time pooping. My mind blanked, and I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, and making sure that my mother did the same. My positive energy was carrying over from the first 20 miles, and I was riding the tail end of that adrenaline.
Mile 24
What is this? A SECOND WIND? I couldn’t believe it, but once I knew that the finish line was only two miles away, I was filled with a new burst of energy, my legs opening up as my stride carried me down the hills of St. Paul. My father and his wife, both longtime residents of Minnesota, cheered me on from the sidelines. I waved to them like a celebrity waving at her fans.I didn’t know that it was possible to feel so good after two dozen miles, but I felt great. The thought of meeting my sweet boyfriend at the finish line and finally being able to have a sit on my caboose pushed me forward.
Mile 26.2
I crossed through the chute, threw my arms up, and bowed as a volunteer draped a medal over my neck. A medal that proved that I, who had been hopeless for so long, who had barely trained at all, still had it in me.Even if it was a 4:50 marathon.
WHAT I LEARNED
The first thing I learned was that not training for a marathon is not ideal. It is actually kind of dumb. Without training, you’re almost guaranteeing yourself, and resigning yourself to, a disappointing time (though to be honest, finishing was good enough for me, even if it was an hour slower than the times I used to run). I am signed up for another marathon at the end of April, and I have been much more consistent in my training, prioritizing a long run every weekend. My goal is to ultimately get closer to my old marathon pace, and have accepted that I may never end up improving upon it. Finishing a marathon at all feels like a blessing at this point.
Despite the fact that I know I’ll never run a marathon again with that little training, in some ways, doing it that way had its perks. Most race mornings I am jittery, having tossed and turned all night, my nerves getting the best of me and my thoughts wandering to the worst case scenarios. I have always set high standards for myself, especially when it comes to running, and have learned that expectations can be a burden. With high expectations, failure is all the more soul-crushing, and the fear of failure, at least for me, is hard to cope with. This time around, I entered the race with absolutely zero expectations of myself and my performance, and without that pressure, I found that this was probably the most fun marathon I have run to date.
I think my biggest takeaway is this: the human body is far stronger than anyone gives it credit for. My high school cross country coach used to echo a statistic that resonated with me then and resonates with me now:running is only 10% training, physical endurance, and physical ability. It is 90% mental, and your own thoughts and attitudes can dictate whether you dropout of a race or set a personal record. I had not run a long distance like this in years, but I chose to not overthink things, to refuse to acknowledge pain as long as I could, and, most importantly, to have fun. It was my mind, more than my legs, that got me over that finish line. Your legs can do the work. It’s a question of whether your head can, too.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or a certified running coach, so I wouldn’t recommend not training for a marathon. But if you don’t, or you can’t, trust me, you’ll make it through it. And you might even come out of it realizing you’re stronger than you ever thought possible. I know I did.
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