On Saturday, December, 6th 2003 I boarded a Southwest airlines flight to Tucson, AZ to run in my 5th marathon the following Sunday, December 7th, I was excited, but naïve. I was in a personal state of flux; no job, living my last days in a scorched apartment, and choking under looming expectations of what this marathon was supposed to be, but somewhere inside of me, or maybe everywhere inside of me, I knew it was going to hurt.
First off there was the expensive cab ride from the airport to the host hotel, but the hotel was all I dreamt it would be, yay, worth the splurge. I was almost giggly at the race expo because for the first time I walked around with a Cheshire grin like I had the winning lottery ticket in my hand; I was well prepared for the race, calm even, and ready to blow the doors off of the desert come dawn the next morning.
Then came dinner... I ate pasta at the Athlete Welcome Dinner. The meal was tasty, but it had no business being in my belly the night before the most important race of my life. Next came a near sleepless night, which would just be annoying on any other night, but detrimental this time because I needed to be up and out of my room by 4:00AM in order to board the school bus shuttle which drove us 26.2 miles into the dark desert sky toward the starting line.
They kept us on the buses for too long. I was bouncing off the walls trying to get my fellow runners pumped up, which felt fun to me, but it might have just been obnoxious. Oh well, I was ready to run. I hit up the port-o-potty like usual, but my stomach was a tad more restless than usual, hmm, but I thought I was good to go and ready to tackle the day. It was cold, and majestic, because we were literally in the middle of the desert; no spectators, just us marathoners pointed in one direction, downhill to the finish line.
When the gun went off I shot out like a cannonball, fast, fast, fast, the miles could not go by quick enough, but something was definitely off. Initially it was my quads being crushed under my overzealous speed, and unforgiving downhill, then my stomach started to sear up like the blur flame from a blow torch, not pleasant. I had never felt such piercing pain in my abdomen in my twenty-three years on earth, but these jabs made up for the lost time, OUCH, does not even begin to describe what I was screaming inside. Regardless of my torture, I had to push on and move; I wanted so badly to make my splits in order to make my qualifying time of 3:40, which meant no time for pit-stops, I had to keep running.
When I passed the mile nine marker I knew my dream of a sub 3:40 finish was over, and my day switched from PR pursuit to survival. My quads were bursting from the constant pounding of the “tantalizing” downhill course and my stomach was screaming at me to stop or else. However, even with straining “Superman-like” x-ray vision I could not spot another port-o-potty up ahead, so I was forced to choose plan B. I will spare you the details, but I will say that I had to pull over on the side of the non-shaded, wide open highway, and painfully realize that choosing red shorts was not so fabulous of a decision after all.
I had no support with me that day, and I was thankful, because I felt like a true failure, but I kept running. I am embarrassed to admit that I was angry at the finish line. Even though I had accomplished another huge feat of finishing a marathon in the time of 4:15, which considering my bodily breakdown was respectable, it was far from what I set out to do, and I felt like my day was ruined. I held onto my not-so-cheery attitude through my hurried clean up routine in my room, and made sure to grab the balloons from my "pity party" for the cab ride to the airport where I called Peter to fill him in on my devastating day. He was great as always, but it still felt like a bad dream that I wished I could wake up from.
A few hours later while sitting alone waiting for my plane to board I met a fellow marathoner who I confided in, details and all, and what he told me finally made me feel like one of the tribe, “Oh, you had G.I problems, that happens.” That is all I needed to hear, Shit happens.
I dozed off easily on take off knowing I had a storm of turmoil awaiting me at home, but I had faith that I would figure it out, and it was only December of 2003, I still had nine months before my deadline of qualifying for Boston, I had time, and now I had real experience to build on. The fact was that I had just run my fifth marathon which was pretty cool, and lessons were learned.
1.) No pasta dinners
2.) No “downhill” courses
3.) No quitting
Onward.
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