The Epic Marathon Post

If you read this, you might know that I've been training for a marathon since May. Well, marathon day finally arrived. And at 7:16am PST, I crossed the start line and began my first mile. Approximately 5.8 hours later, I was done. Normally I try to minimize personal posts on this blog, but this was such a big event in my life and I think it's pretty relatable to most people.

I guess one of the most important facts when relating my story is that, prior to starting training, I had never run more than 4 miles in one go. I was not (and would say that I'm probably still not) an endurance athlete. Even running a 5K was difficult for me. My normal 5K time average about 11-12 minutes a mile. My fastest mile was 9 minutes. Plus I have exercise-induced asthma. To sum up, I'm no crazy, natural athlete. If anything, it takes even more work for me than it does most people.

When I first started with Team In Training, I followed the schedule every week and made sure I did my runs in the evening. I went to every Saturday morning group training session. However, my fundraising was going very slowly. Once school started in mid-August, I had about $2,000 more to go and I started to get a lot busier. My schedule really affected my training. The big part that I missed was three long runs. The longest training run I completed before my marathon was only 14 miles. This was in no way recommended. My coach tried to convince me to switch to the half, but by that point I had already run three half marathons in training.

The week before, I was really stressed out. I still had $1600 more to go with fundraising and I didn't know what to do. Most of my friends and family had already donated and I didn't have any time to plan another event or do anything that would raise that amount of money. I went into my gym on Tuesday morning (BTB Crossfit!) to workout and started talking to Melissa, who owns BTB along with her husband Jeff. Jeff recently beat Hodgkin's Lymphoma for a second time in 2008, and they both raise a lot of money for ACS and LLS. Melissa said she'd post my link on the blog, but a few minutes after I email her the link, she sends me a reply back saying they'd decided to donate a portion of the money they had raised during a recent Fight Gone Bad fundraiser to LLS through my page. A portion of $1300. I was able to finish out the week just focusing on interviewing, school, and getting ready for the marathon.

Despite a couple of delays, I made it to San Francisco, wandered around a bit, picked up my bib (#389!), and got to sleep early on Saturday night. Sunday morning, my roommate and I woke up at 4.30am and started getting ready for the day. Ate some potatoes, tied my shoes, made sure everything was in place, then I headed down to a meeting with my teammates. At 6.30am, we all walked down to get in the mass of runners. We made our way to the middle and waited for the start. If you've never run a big race (Nike had 20,000 runners), you are missing out. I don't even like crowds, but there is nothing more exhilarating than being out there with that many people, all shapes and sizes, all with the same goal: FINISH. Sure we got started a bit late, but the time tag on my shoe took that into account.

I crossed the start line at 7.16am, right as the sun was rising. The crowd spread out relatively quickly, so by mile 2 I stopped having to dodge people. I started off running a 4:2 run/walk with two of my teammates, but had to break from them at around mile 4 because they wanted to stop and take pictures. I just wanted to run. I didn't have a watch, so I counted on my internal clock telling me when I needed to walk and probably started out doing around 8:2. It was a beautiful morning and I felt like I could keep going forever. The scenery through the first half was just incredible. I ran by myself for about 11 miles, slowed down a bit, then the 5.45 pacer caught up with me. I wanted to finish in under 6 hrs, so I started running with the pacer, Caroline, and continued that for about 9 miles. We were doing a 4:1 run/walk and that worked out really well. I wasn't quite exhausted enough yet and was still able to fight my body into continuing to run. However, that fight was a bit harder to win when I was running on my own and didn't have someone to keep up with.

Around mile 23, I started breaking. I had to start walking and leave Caroline and the pacing group around mile 24. I knew I just needed to keep ahead of the 6 hr pacer. I walked for about a mile and a half, trying to build up the energy to run through the finish. Midway through my walk, I hear someone shout my name and my grandmother starts walking beside me. I wasn't expected to see family until the finish, but it was so great to get the extra boost of encouragement. I needed it. I said a temporary goodbye to my grandma and started running again. I had about a mile more to go. My coach starts running with me and tells me how proud she is and how she couldn't believe how hard I was able to push myself. I couldn't either. At about half a mile to go, I see my cousins and aunt and uncle. They start running alongside shouting encouragement and I just couldn't believe it.

Everyone was talking about the San Francisco firemen that hand us our necklaces when we finish and how they were going to give them a kiss and whatnot. I barely even saw them. When I crossed the finish line, I started crying. I couldn't believe that any of it was happening, that I had raised all the money, that I had completed the marathon. All through the race and all through training, I was telling myself that I could do it. In the back of my mind, though, I didn't think it was possible. When I finally crossed, I couldn't stop thinking about all the support I had received from my family and friends, how lucky I was to have so many people that love me and want to see me succeed, how close I had come to failing, and my family that had come to see me finish. I had wanted them to come, but I didn't realize how important it was that they were there until I actually got near the end.

It still all seems like some sort of surreal experience. But it was real. I finished 261 out of 350 for my age group and 3473 overall. I finished in 5:50:09, reaching my goal of under 6 hours. I averaged a 13.5 minute mile and kept a steady pace the whole way. I couldn't have done it without all the help along the way.

Pictures up later.