Race Day Part 2: The Dark Side

Now, I’m a very prideful person and rarely do I discuss falling flat on my face (metaphorically speaking) in a public forum. However, when I started this blog I promised that I would give you the good, the bad, and the ugly of this process and that includes this race so here it is...

Once the half marathoners split off I held up for a little while, but by mile 15 I felt like a scared lost little girl just trying to find her way home. This part of the course went through some wooded park which didn’t help matters. By mile 16 a little pain started to set in. The way the course was laid out mile the last 10 miles of the race were what runners call an “out and back”. This means that you end up where you started. But what this really meant in the context of the race was that while I was passing mile 16 I saw the runners on the other side of the road hitting mile 25. This was such a mind f*** for lack of a better phase. To be struggling at mile 16 and watching people who were almost at the finish, that was tough.

The great thing about this event was that it was a LLS race so there were TNT coaches all along the course, helping runners along the way. At mile 16 one of my Brooklyn coaches (Radie) spotted me and asked me how I was doing, I told her not good! She stayed with me for a little while and this was a huge help! Right before mile 18 she said “ok I’m going to leave you now and I’ll see you when you come back around the other side.” I held up for about another mile. By mile 19 I thought, you are played yourself. Where did you get off thinking that you could run a marathon? I tried to repress my negative energy by the positives of the situation were few and far between at this point.

During every marathon there are pacers to for the runners to keep up with in order to finish in a certain time. I was terrified that I would not complete the race in the required 6.5 hours and knew that if I saw the 6 hour pacer pass me I was in trouble! At this point I had seen the 5:00, 5:15, and 5:30 pacers pass me, so I still felt like I had a cushion. Then out of nowhere I see this woman with a sign that says “Course Closing Pace”!!! WTF! What happened to the 5:45, 6:00, and 6:15 pacer??? How did I miss that? Suddenly I felt like I was running for my life from this woman. I lost two of my friends (Kat and Caroline) shortly after mile 15, right after I reached mile 20 I caught them. They looked so excited to see me, but before they could say anything I yelled “run, run for your life the Course Closing Pacer is coming for us!”

I ran as fast as I could but my body had enough I was finding it hard to keep up and slowly but surely the Pacer lady was coming for me. She finally was right on my heels, I asked her what would happen if I finished behind her and she said I wouldn’t get the finishers necklace…Oh the horror!!! How could I come all this way and not get my Tiffany’s finisher’s necklace!?! But I just couldn’t keep up anymore and that’s when it happened…The great meltdown of mile 21 SMH I’m so not proud of this.

I stopped dead in my tracks and started balling, as a matter of fact I launched into a full on ugly cry and said “I can’t do this anymore!” Some man on a bike peddling next to me was rambling about how it was all mental at this point, mind over matter, etc. He’s lucky I had no energy left in my body because I might knocked him off his bike. Then out of nowhere this woman from LA grabbed me up by the shoulders and screamed in my face “DON’T YOU QUIT ON ME!” I don’t know if I was shocked or scared but for some reason I started running again. I accepted the fact that I would not get a finishers necklace because I didn’t meet the required time, but I was determined to finish all the same. I was determined to cross the finish line.

Shortly after mile 22 I had to stop again. By the grace of God a TNT coach happened to be walking by and she asked me “are you ok?” I said “no I’m in a lot of pain and I feel quesy.” I didn’t know it at the time but this was Coach Melanie from LA and she would be the person to get me to the finish line. I am forever grateful for this woman because I’m not sure I would have otherwise made it. Melanie took my fuel belt and made sure I took some time to hydrate.

Melanie said to me “this is your race and you can walk to finish line and cross it all the same but how do you feel about doing 1/1 intervals (meaning running for a minute and walking for a minute)?” This might sound easy to you but after running the majority of 23 miles I could barely put one foot in font of the other. So we did 1/1 intervals for about another mile and then I was really done! I walked pretty much for the last two miles of the race.

Right before mile 25 my Brooklyn coach Radie was there, she really did look for me! At this point it was raining and the first aid people came to give the remaining runners a finishers cover so we wouldn’t freeze. Shortly after I spotted Radie, I saw two of my other Brooklyn coaches. I was so disoriented at this point I didn’t even recognize them at first. One of the coaches Kara ran up to me and said “give me a smile” and I responded “Kara? Is that you? Oh it is you!”….yeah I was out of it. Right before mile 25 there was a power song station playing “Eye of the Tiger”. My other Brooklyn coach James said “this is it! You have the eye of the tiger!” Two seconds later they race staff turned off the music and started breaking down the power song station. James quickly cleaned it up with “you already know that song, you don’t need to hear it again.” At this point I just wanted to finish the damn race I was cold, wet, tired, and in more pain than I could ever imagine.

Then in the distance I saw the finish line. I started to tear up a little bit at the thought of finishing this race but I held it together. It was a strange feeling because I wanted to get the finish line as fast as possible but my body wouldn’t move. Then out of nowhere I started running like a granny and before I knew it I finished!!!! I thought I would be more emotional but I had a quick cry and then kept it moving (slowly of course). But the best part of the finish was despite finishing after the required time, I got a finishers necklace and shirt! Proof that I was actually there and I actually completed the race.

People always say that you walk up to the starting line of a marathon as one person and cross the finish line as another. Truthfully I didn’t believe that until I wrote this post and reflected on my experience. When I finished the race I felt numb, I expected this big outpour of emotion and this huge transformation, but it just wasn’t there. I was embarrassed that I didn’t finish in the required time, but when I think about that day now I’m proud of what I did. I chose to do this race because I wanted to challenge myself. The race wasn’t easy and that’s what makes me proud. It broke me and I still managed to pull it together to finish. It took me four and a half months but I went from zero to twenty six!

When I finished the race I declared that I would never run another marathon. Well my exact words were “I’m never putting my body through this bullsh*t again.” I wasn’t exactly in a happy place after the finish. I then got on the bus back to the hotel and one of my teammates said I think this is more painful than giving birth. I don’t have children so I can’t compare the two. However, I’ve heard many Mothers say that the further away you get away from the labor the more you forget about the pain. Why else would women keep putting themselves through the agony of childbirth? This weekend I cheered on my teammates running in the NYC marathon and I decided...I think I want another baby, stay tuned :-)