I finished my first marathon this past Saturday on a pretty dope Spring day in the nation’s capital (Ashkhabad, I mean Washington DC). While I wasn’t sure what to expect, the experience was definitely cooler than I could have imagined. I wouldn’t rank it as high as major life changing events like getting married or finding out that we’re having a kid. It also falls lower than such significant events as witnessing Helmet Catch or getting drunk on a boat and then jumping into the ocean off a rope swing while the Venezuelan Coast Guard laughs at you before their shift ends and they are forced to go home and watch 8 hours of Chavez TV. But I would rank completing a marathon on the third tier, alongside Sam’s Choice intramural basketball team’s improbable playoff win over the #1 seed in the 2002 League C Championships.
The only reason I wanted to run a marathon was because people said it was a bad idea. I like the idea of “crazy” even though a marathon is not really all that crazy. There are many things that outrank a marathon on the crazy scale such as hanging out with Ben Roethlisberger or playing racquetball blindfolded. I remember conversations with Unky Joe telling me that it’s stupid to run a marathon. He’d then tell me about his friends who went through all sorts of issues after completing a marathon, from blisters to ulcers to dehydration and vomiting to other stuff that I can’t remember. He then would add, why don’t you run two half-marathons instead? I probably said yeah, that’s a good idea, and then thought ok, definitely running a marathon now. Besides I’m used to the awful feelings associated with doing fun things, since I’d say one-third of my life was committed to getting as drunk as possible. It was this dedication to drinking, along with the terrible hangovers that followed, that told me that running a marathon was absolutely necessary and definitely tolerable. In retrospect, the post-marathon death-feeling wouldn’t come close to cracking my top 10 list of worst hangovers.
I wanted to run the Philly marathon in November this past fall after finishing the Philly half in September or October but Sarah said nah, you should train more. That made sense since the half marathon marked the longest distance I had run to that point, so to figure out double the distance in under two months would have been difficult. So I decided to look for a local Spring race that wasn’t in May because running a marathon before driving Sarah to The Birth Center seemed like an all-time bad idea, so I figured March was good. The two localest marathons were Virginia Beach St. Patrick’s or the DC National. I chose DC because it was closer, and after spending a billion dollars, I was registered.
The next step was figuring out the best way to train for it, so I decided to read an article or two in Runner’s World. I decided on the training program that had a couple days off in the week. Running more than 5 days in a week is not necessary and probably even bad for training because your muscles need to recoup or something. Maybe that’s true. I believe it and away I went. The only thing I remember from my training program was to take two days off. The rest said something about interval training and occasional cross trainings, so I decided I would just run every day until I got bored or tired. I decided that it was important to run a long distance each week. The next week you would try to run farther. The third week you’d chill a little bit. Then the fourth week you’d run longer again. Excellent plan.
In addition, I consulted some of my friends who have run marathons in the past for their advice. Chris, the 100 miler in the group, offered me a pretty specific plan. He said I needed to hit a certain amount of miles in a week before a certain date. It was pretty intimidating. But he runs 50 and 100 mile races, so I figured he was a little bit too tough. James and Ronit also had some training tips that I ignored. As the weeks wore on, James dumbed it down for me and told me to hit 20 miles by the end of February (the race was March 20th) and I left it at that. I decided 17 was sufficient. Ronit gave me some good diet tips which included, double up on bananas the week of the race and eat lots of salt to help retain water. She also told me to drink a bunch of water (what Sarah calls a “Slam Dunk”) and a Gatorade the night before and the morning of. She also told me to make sure I get water/Gatorade at each of the water stops for the first half of the marathon. I did this happily as I made a game of seeing how much Powerade I could pour on my stupid shirt. It turns out I am awesome at spilling shit.
With excellent training and diet behind me, not to mention incredible flexibility due to the fact that I am married to a yoga instructor, I was all set. I got down to DC the night before and hung out on the Metro. On the way down I realized I forgot to pack my race shirt, which was going to be an Alaskan Brewery shirt. This was the greatest mistake I could make because I was forced to one of those lame-ass running shirts (highlighter yellow) at the marathon expo. Thanks to this shirt, and good use of the anti-chaffing stick, my nerps did not blerd. These running shirts, along with anti-blister socks (spent $11 on one pair of Nikes), applying anti-chaf between your toes, and making sure your shoe size is the size you are supposed to be wearing (I wore 11s for half the year when I was definitely a size 12) are the only advice I can give you on how to not be messed up during/after the marathon. Another tip would be to learn about stretching, which I have not done yet, because my hamstring screwed up at about mile 22, which I could have prevented since being married to a yoga instructor is not the same thing as doing yoga. The hydration and use of Gu also helped avoid dehydration related headaches and actual dehydration. Yet another tip would be to absolutely read Born to Run by Christopher Macdougall. That book is dope.
Damn this is longer than I wanted it to be already. The race itself was fun. It started at 7, so I decided to wake up at 4, so I can get there by 5:30, so I can make a game while waiting for the race to start at the DC Armory. The game was “Let’s see how many bathrooms I can find and use.” The answer is all of them. I found the employees only bathroom. It said authorized personnel only behind this point. I decided that I was authorized and did my thing in peace. The other bathrooms were super crowded. Runners are a foul bunch. At 7, the race started. I was a little nervous, but I was annoyed because while lining up I realized I had to pee again even though I went 45 times already. I decided I’d just start running and the urine would just sweat itself out. This plan failed miserably, and the first 9 miles were spent wondering if I could die from not allowing myself to use the restroom. The answer of course is yes you definitely can, as water intoxication has taken the lives of many shock jock radio game show contestants (hold your wee for a wii). At mile 9 I thought it’d be good to take a whiz, so I stopped and waiting for a nasty port-a-potty. I picked the right line behind a couple of guys who only needed to do some standing, so I was in and out after only about a minute wait. The bad part about taking this piss was that I spent the first 9 miles worrying about having to take a piss which conveniently distracted me from the distance that still needed to be covered. So when I started running I was annoyed because I still had 17.2 miles to go, which was .2 longer than the longest I had ever run before. So this is when I started to just run and space out. I think I sort of hit that runner’s high at some point as my thoughts started going back and forth between Sarah, Fancy (our soon to be born baby) and God. I remember thinking that it’d be cool for Fancy to be able to say that his/her dad ran a marathon, but then I hoped Fancy wouldn’t be mad that I wasn’t breaking 4 hours (original goal that I gave up on after the pit stop). I’ll try and run a sub-4 marathon in the Fall so Fancy can be all, “Yeah dad got a sub-4”. I also need to lower my time in the event that Fancy decides to run because I always need to have a good I remember when story to bore the kid with. At mile 16, I thought of Sarah’s triumphant Broad Street Run adventure last year when she decided to run the day before, even though she hadn’t been running. She ran the whole thing without any running training, so I figured the last 10 miles would manageable. They surprisingly were. The only issue was the hamstring thing at mile 22. James told me afterwards that he brings aspirins on his runs, so I’ll probably do that next time. F it all. The last mile of the race, I turned off the iPod and listened to the crowd which made the whole thing worth it. I remember running with the right leg that wouldn’t bend anymore and finished feeling pretty damn excited. All in all, I’d rank the experience as a solid 5 out of 5 Netflix stars.
I thought that the marathon would decide if I was going to continue with running or if I’d have my fix and retire to a wonderful hobby-life of making model boats. Two days after the race, I’m feeling ready to go again, so I’m deciding on whether I should try and go faster or farther. I think I’ll opt for farther (maybe further) and sign up for a 50-K. So hang on Fancy, you’re going for a ride.
TTYL,
T. mali
