Finding Momentum

Before we begin, let me say THANK YOU to all of you who’ve con­tributed to the Inter­na­tional Jus­tice Mis­sion cause! In the span of just two weeks, we’ve raised over $800! Thank you for your gen­eros­ity! It’s our hope that we wouldn’t just give and turn away, but our hearts would be more sen­si­tized as our giv­ing solid­i­fies the link between our wal­lets and our hearts.

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Another big THANK YOU to all of you who had been instru­men­tal in encour­ag­ing me to press on in my train­ing for this event. This event was like no other I’ve ever been to.

It struck me on race day what a fra­ter­nal sport run­ning is; everybody’s in it together. So when we all gath­ered up at the start­ing line, strangers were giv­ing each other pep talks, fin­ish­ers walked back on the course to encour­age strag­glers, and a good bunch of three run­ners stopped run­ning com­pletely to come to my aid after I gra­ciously face­planted with a cramped calf.

So the weeks before, I’d been side­lined a bit with a knee injury (ten­donitis in my left knee). There­fore, I’d been run­ning only gym work­outs for a good two weeks before race day. No long, extended dis­tances, which led me to doubt my readi­ness on race day.

Typ­i­cal marathon work­outs encour­age you to run four or five 20+ mile work­outs in your train­ing rou­tine prior to rac­ing. I had been aver­ag­ing 13-14mi on my long runs in the months prior, so I was about six miles short of being a truly pre­pared runner.

Still–when the start­ing gun blew, I found myself in this huge sea of peo­ple. It was pretty amaz­ing, this sheer num­ber of cra­zies like me get­ting out there to run on a chilly morn­ing. I also noticed some stom­ach pain; per­haps from the weird Power­Bar for­mula I took an hour before.

The Golden Gate was WAY windier than I’d expected, not doing much for my stom­ach. I ended up pac­ing behind guys with big mus­cles. I don’t know why I did; maybe I just assumed they knew what they were doing. I took the first half pretty easy: I ran a 2:03 split (a 9:25/mi pace).

I started to get a bit more into race men­tal­ity on the sec­ond half. I got it into my mind to break 4 hours, so I knew I had to catch the 2:00 pacer girl (these are run­ners who guar­an­tee a cer­tain run­ning pace). So the sec­ond half was very much a race to catch up to and pass as many peo­ple as possible.

Peo­ple I remem­ber remem­ber­ing: Big Guy with Big Mus­cles in a Cut­off Shirt, 2:00 Pacer Girl, Girl in Blue Shirt Who I Couldn’t Pass The Last Six Miles, and Tony the Pop­u­lar Guy in a Pur­ple Shirt (every­body he passed was like “Go, Tony!” or “Hey, Tony!” to which he’d throw up a peace sign and a million-watt grin).

What I didn’t expect was how hard The Wall would hit me at the 19 mile mark. We were exit­ing Golden Gate Park when my body told me, “Andrew, I think I’m done run­ning” and started Cramp­ing Mode, which I hadn’t really counted on.
The next seven miles were the Longest hour of my life, and it was essen­tially a lot of awk­ward run­ning sprin­kled with some inter­mit­tent cramps in my foot, my calf and my ham­string. They’d usu­ally take turns, just to keep it inter­est­ing. My mind didn’t quite appre­ci­ate it. Spec­ta­tors just laughted.

What I don’t get is why I didn’t get it in my mind to stop and take the time to stretch. I guess I was too dog­gone set on beat­ing 4 hours, so I’d be run­ning through cramps (my body’s obvi­ous way of sig­nal­ing me to stop). It helped that 2:00 Pacer Girl was in strik­ing dis­tance, keep­ing me on pace for bet­ter or worse.

So it com­pletely befud­dles me that despite these cramps and a fall that I’d run my sec­ond half faster than the first: 1:58 (at a respectable 9:13/mi pace). What in the world hap­pened there? No idea.

But let’s just say that one of the great­est feel­ings in the world (well.. it’s pretty up there) is cross­ing that fin­ish line and just feel­ing your body scream for joy of Being Done. And is that food on those tables over there? Yeah, I’ll be over there.

Major props to Tony for fin­ish­ing his half marathon in style and being a great help in IJM fundrais­ing. Of course, Sarah was as patient and amaz­ing as ever in truck­ing our weary bod­ies all around SF that morn­ing and afternoon.

All in all, a won­der­ful feel­ing, this marathon thing. Really, I’m not crazy. I just like the feel­ing of mov­ing for­ward, the inex­orable draw toward the fin­ish line and the charge to persevere.

There’s talk of run­ning more races in the fall. Any­body interested?

A Smor­gas­bord of Pain!

(More on Flickr, of course)