My First Marathon

First of all, I would like to apologize to all of you faithful blog readers. I know it's been 2+ weeks since I've posted an entry and I'm really sorry about that. What with preparing for the marathon and wrapping things up here in Besançon, the last few weeks have just been really busy. Even if I don't get to all of them before I leave here on April 25th (one week from today, eek), I've been keeping track of my ideas as draft entries, and don't be surprised if there's a crescendo of blog posts right after I get back. I hope you agree they will be worth the wait!

Now, for those of you who haven't gotten the update, about my first marathon:

I went into this, my first marathon, with the general goal of finishing. However, it's always good to have a more precise time goal, and since the three half-marathons I have run were all around 1:45 (one hour, forty-five minutes), I figured four hours was a good estimate for what I could do for a marathon. I have been running since I got here in mid-September, but didn't register for the marathon until early January. I re-read my journal on the train ride to Annecy, and was reminded that I had trouble running for 30 minutes without stopping when I first got to Besançon! So the marathon represents significant progress over the last eight months!

Grace (a fellow French major and '11 Wake Forest grad, she is a primary school assistant in a small town called Issoudun in the Loire Valley) and I arrived in Annecy on Friday night and had planned on spending all Saturday exploring the town, but the weather turned out to be cold and rainy. We ventured out to get our race packets and numbers, looked into a few shops and ate lunch, but then spent the afternoon reading and napping in the hotel. It's a shame because Annecy is known for being gorgeous and a lovely vacation town, but I can attest that it's not great in bad weather.
Unforunately that bad weather carried through to Sunday morning, when I woke up at 7am for my 8:30 race (the picture on the right is pre-race in the hotel room). It turned out to be good running weather though, because I didn't get hot and the rain kept my body refreshed. The course started on a street where the lakefront meets the city (the picture on the left is of me waiting to start the race) and then continued along the eastern side of the lake all the way down to the bottom and back. It was along a bike trail (flat flat fat -- good for my first time), and since there were 3,514 people running the race there wasn't much room to slow down during the first 15km or so. All the better for me! The first 15 km or so went really well; I didn't feel like I was expending any huge effort and my legs felt good. I was hoping to find a buddy I could chat with during the race but I didn't find any candidates (no one else was talking or looked friendly enough). Running in a pack was a big motivater though, I had the impression we were any army headed off to war -- a very skinny army!

I hit the halfway point at 2 hours, 40 seconds and that was when I started getting tired thinking about doing the same thing all over again. It really got tough around the 30km mark and the last 10km were a huge test of my willpower. It was my thighs in particular which started to ache; they felt like blocks of cement I was dragging along. But I didn't walk once! I did stop for water at nearly every water break, and I think those and the small refreshments (orange slices, raisins, even tiny squares of gingerbread) made a huge difference. I had planned to take 5-minute walk breaks at each hour, but I couldn't at the first hour, no one else was walking at the second hour, and by the third I figured, heck, I'd just run the whole thing.

There were pacers running with giant flags on their backs, and I was running with or in front of the pacer for 4 hours up until the 30km mark, when I fell behind. I was always within sight distance though, and I would check my watch to see how far behind I was and it was always around 2-3 minutes. I figured my new goal would be to finish in under 4 hours, 15 minutes. The final km was around the park where we started and it was cool to have people encouraging us. The crowd wasn't quite as loud as I expected though, and I noticed that few people seemed to be enouraging the runners other than their friends when I cheered for Grace in the afternoon.

I rounded the final corner with about 50 meters to go before the finish (the red carpet and everything, that part was pretty cool), and saw the giant stopwatch. It read : 3 hours, 59 minutes, 37 seconds. My heart soared!! I had thought there was no chance I could meet my goal and when I saw those glowing red numbers I burst into a sprint with absolutely everything I had left. I crossed the finish line at 3:59.45, 15 seconds to spare on my goal time, and promptly burst into tears. The happiness at achieving my goal and my complete physical exhaustion were just too much. It was undoubtably one of the coolest moments of my life.

I pulled it together though and happily accepted my medal from one of the volunteers. I tried to keep walking, because I knew stopping would only make it worse. I actually didn't have the impulse to sit down -- my legs hurt too much. They had refreshments in a big tent immediately afterward: fruit, granola bars, water, chocolate, dried fruit and slices of gingerbread. I wasn't even hungry, but I ate because it seemed like a good idea. I was still really shaky and scatterbrained afterwards, but met up with Grace and we walked (slowly) back to the hotel so I could change into dry cothes before her race (she ran the half-marathon in the afternoon).

The train ride back that evening was pretty rough. More than anything, I was surprised by how much my feet and ankles hurt. It might be because my shoes were a little on the old side (I was afraid to buy new ones right before the race). Or it could just be that they've never run that far before and are just tired. I was still in a lot of pain Sunday night, and had a hard time falling asleep because of it. Monday was pretty rough too, I waddled more than walked and going down the stairs involved bracing myself against the banister. But by today (Wednesday, the third day after the race) I'm walking normally again and can go down the stairs without too much wincing.

Despite the pain, I don't think it will be my last marathon. The high when I finished was incredibly, particularly because I achieved my goal. I was on cloud nine! The next time though, I want to do one with a friend or close to home, so that my family and/or friends can come cheer me on. I was jealous of the other runners who had their own fan clubs! Dayton, Ohio Air Force Marathon on April 15??