Pre-Calgary Marathon
Okay.
So here it is.
Finally, three and a half weeks later I’ve finally decided to put thought to paper.
On June 14th 2009 I stepped outside for the first time with the intention of running. I started out with a walk to run program and my first run was actually run for 1:00 followed by a 0:30 walk repeated 15 times. One month later I was able to run 5k straight without any walk breaks. I kept running 5k three times a week for another month before I decided to up the ante. It was about this time that I began thinking about running a marathon. I’ve read many times that you should be running for at least a year before you attempt your first marathon. With this in mind I began to search for race possibilities. Once I found the Calgary Marathon and saw that it was on May 30th, two weeks before my one year anniversary. I knew this was the one.
I lived in Calgary for 5 years and still have plenty of friends who live there or in the area. It just seemed to make sense. So I had my target Marathon and worked backwards to determine when my training should officially begin. I got my training schedule from Nike+ and just kept running until it started. Training went well. I was on target. Until about 3 months before the race. I cranked my knee on a rim at work and needed to take a week off to recover. Just as my knee was feeling good enough to run I cranked it again on another rim, by doing the exact same thing. Two weeks gone at this point but I had recovered and felt great. I went out for my long run and had shaved off 3 mins from my previous time at that distance. This made me completely confident that I hadn’t lost any momentum. My next run after that long run was when it showed up. Shin splints. Which require at least two weeks to recover. So here I am five consecutive weeks of hardly any running and only five more weeks to go until the marathon. I knew I couldn’t go out too fast or run too far or the shin splints would return so I had to take it slow.
If things had gone well and there were no injuries than mathematically I should’ve been able to pull of about a 3:42:00 marathon. My goal was anything under 4 hours. Prior to my injuries I was running 9:15 minute miles and about to jump up to 9:00 minute miles. To be able to finish the last five weeks without injuring myself all over again I decided to drop back down to 10:00 minute miles. I hated every run I did because it felt so slow. I even shortened all of my runs. The last five weeks were revised 3 separate times to reduce the potential of injury. By the time I got to the marathon the longest run that I had done was 16 miles. A marathon is 26 miles and 385 yards. I knew I was in over my head.
The week leading up to the marathon I was only getting more nervous and excited as the days progressed.
Friday. I drive down to Calgary and don’t have a clue what to expect. At the end of the day on Friday I had decided completing the race without walking would be satisfactory, completing it in less than 5 hours would make me happy and if I pulled off a sub-4:30:00 marathon then I would be pumped.
Saturday. I ran around and did all of the final preparations that needed to be done. Still in a bit of shock that after all this time the marathon is less than 24 hours away. I made sure to buy a few gels that I new I liked and checked the weather constantly to try and determine what to wear.
Sunday. Woke up at 4:30 am. Ate toast. Showered. Dressed. Still in disbelief. Went to get my gels out of my vehicle and realized that I had locked my keys inside. It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t driving myself there and at this point worrying about it would only make things worse mentally. In my head I’m freaking out the whole way to the starting line. The closer we got, the more busier the sidewalks got with other racers. I still don’t know what to think.
6:40 am. I have placed myself in between the 4:00:00 and the 4:30:00 pace bunnies. Standing in anticipation. I can’t wait to start. I can’t wait to find out what I’ve got in me. I can’t wait to experience all that I’ve read and prepared for.
7:00 am. The race begins.
What have I gotten myself into?