Went through the hardest race I’ve ever faced in my lifetime. The last 24 hours have been absolutely miserable. Flu like symptoms kept me in bed sick as a dog last night. I ran my 2nd slowest ever marathon in 3:02.05 (about 25 minutes slower than I wanted) and wound up hooked to an IV, but I’m satisfied with the result! It was my 1st hot weather marathon and I stayed with my plan. In hindsight my plan should have been different, but if you make a decision good or bad you’re the one that has to live with the results and I’m not discouraged. It’s a learning process and if you race the marathon long enough it’s a matter of time before a humbling marathon becomes part of your race history.
I must admit I was a little worried about this race being a blow up before I even started due to my inexperience of a hilly marathon course and even more lack of experience with nutrition and the heat was just an additional factor that no one could have predicted. Who would have predicted it to be the 2nd hottest Boston in history?
Every marathon I’ve run I’ve failed to stay on pace and I haven’t quite found what works for my nutrition during the race. The plan this time was 2 cups of water every water stop and electrolyte pills with GU gels every 4-6 miles or whatever my body could handle in the heat. Of course this was all just a guess because the longest training run I did in this kind of heat was last summer! My nutrition plan turned out to be a catastrophe! I hydrated and ate well leading up to the marathon and I have no doubts about it. During the race Ishould have been drinking the Gatorade instead of water. At my last marathon the Gatorade was not sitting well, so I abandoned it for this one. Big mistake! The electrolyte pills weren’t enough. I was on goal pace for about 10 miles when I started to run out of electrolytes and my body stopped absorbing the water. Somehow I stayed tough and maintained a 6:02 pace through the ½ marathon mark, but I knew I was in trouble because shortly after 1/2 I felt my 1st calf cramp. I took the cramp as a warning sign. I made a very smart decision to back off the pace and start switching over to 2 cups of Gatorade.
The damage had already been done though. I would eventually fall to 7:30 pace and to eventually a walking pace when I experienced a very scary cramp that went up my neck into my head. The cramp caused me to become dizzy and almost fall over. I thought at 1st I might be having a stroke when it 1st came on. I now think it was just a neck cramp that moved up along the back of my head, but it caused me to become disoriented. It was a very scary feeling! I walked it off and it came back one more time later in the race, but again I immediately started walking and it went away after a minute or so.
I would also go on to walk several more times with cramping. I have no doubt the switch to Gatorade was the only reason I was able to finish. From mile 14 was a long slow race to the finish. Something I’ll never forget. It’s such a helpless feeling to be so far away from the finish with no gas left in the tank.
There’s an old saying that says death smiles at us all we can do is smile back. My loving wife and friend’s family all took the train to mile 17 to cheer us on. When I ran by them at mile 17 I pointed at my legs and yelled, “My legs are shot” and smiled at them. The rest of the way I stayed focused on getting to the finish, but that was one moment I really enjoyed in the race. My family had a miserable time getting around the course. It was a long day for them. I felt much love on a very miserable day not only from my family, but all of the amazing spectators, volunteers, and medical personnel. The medical teams had the hardest job in the city, when I made the medical tent it had just reached 50% capacity. When I left it was at 100% and the line to get in for medical attention was 200-300 feet of people sitting in wheel chairs with no shade available! My friend Todd finished almost 2 hours above his qualifying time. He said he say a lady fall down with her eyes rolled back in her head. Spectators swarmed her immediately. He said he saw another guy fall down at mile 26 and had to be wheel chaired away. A spectator told me 95% of everyone finishing over 4.5 hours were walking.
My 2nd marathon was the journey to our condo. I barely made it back without the assistance of an ambulance. I was in the tent for an hour and a half while I received an IV of fluids. I felt a strong desire to get up and out of there because I could see the strain on the medical teams and I knew there had to be more people outside waiting to get in.
After about an hour I struggled to get to my feet, but once I was up standing I was steady and feeling okay to walk. I walked to the family area and found my wife and son. I started feeling sick again, so I found a shady spot to lie down. I would stay in that spot until about 5 pm. I couldn’t get up; every time I did I would throw up or get dizzy.
I was holding down the water and started taking down chips, so I knew I was on the upswing, but it took a LONG time to get back on my feet. Once I eventually made it to the train and back home I was confined to a toilet and a bed the rest of the night with what I would call terrible flue like symptoms. Jen thinks it was heat exhaustion to mild heat stroke due to the temperature swings I was experiencing last night.
From a competition standpoint I stayed on my goal pace through 10K (5:57 pace) going 6:18, 5:52, 6:00, 5:48, 6:05, 5:48 for a 37:02 10K (All of these felt good, I was just rolling with the hills. I had faster splits on the down hills and slower splits on the up hills, but everything was in check). I did exactly what I wanted to do.
The next 7 miles to the ½ went 5:54, 6:02, 5:56, 6:09, 6:12 (struggled with a side stitch), 5:58, 6:13 (legs were starting to fall apart here) for a 1:19:02 ½ marathon (6:02 pace). I was still on pace to be in that 2:35-2:40 time range.
After the amazing high of the Wellesley college girls at around mile 14 I was seriously worried about hitting my goal, little did I know I’d soon be worried about finishing! I went 6:20, 6:38, and 6:26 desperately trying to hang on for miles 14, 15, and 16.
Mile 17 is when everything came crashing down on me for good. I split a 7:16 and saw the family, which gave me a little boost going into the hills, but my legs couldn’t muster much. Miles 18, 19, and 20 were 7:33, 7:32, and 7:44.
I was so out of it I didn’t even realize I ran heart break hill. The next miles were 8:16, and 8:06. I had to walk mile 23 and 24 because of the painful feeling up my neck into my head that made me dizzy enough to almost fall over. These miles were 9:56 and 9:25. My competitive edge got me going again when I saw a few Kenyans struggling to finish. Mile 25 I managed 8:08 and my final mile came out to be a 7:16 as I found a stride that seemed to be holding of the cramping. I crossed the finish line running 6:21 pace with leg cramps and walked to about where they handed out medals. I started to feel like I was going to faint so I sat down in a wheel chair and I was off to the med tent.
A character building marathon to say the least! Update on the race issues. Two nights after the race I woke up at 3 am ran into the kitchen and compared the electrolyte pills with my vitamins. I thought I was taking electrolytes during the race, but they were actually my calcium/magnesium/d3 vitamins. I had mixed up my vitamins with the electrolytes! That explains the nausea after the race and the reason I got heat stroke during the race. I can't believe I could make that kind of mistake. Unbelievable!
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