I Finished a Marathon

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my goals for this summer was to complete a marathon. I had originally planned on completing a marathon on July 24th, the Deseret News Marathon in Salt Lake City, Utah. As I approached the date, I realized that I would likely need a few more weeks of training before I could complete it. I determined to do my own marathon distance, without entering a marathon race. I chose to run this race in the beautiful Batelle Darby Creek area southwest of Columbus, Ohio.

I completed my marathon at Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park. There are some great trails there, though they are fairly short. The longest is  about 4.5 miles, so I had to repeat a few trips.

I wasn't sure what the weather would be like, so I woke up pretty early (2:30 AM) and began my marathon in my neighborhood. I walked 10 miles there until the sun started to shine, at which time I drove to the park to complete the next 16.2 miles.

One of the trails at Darby Creek Park. It is a pretty park with some nice trails.

A few notes from the marathon experience:

• Rain - It actually rained off and on for most of my marathon. I ended up using an umbrella to try to avoid getting my feet wet, which could have caused more blistering.
• Frogs - I probably saw 27 frogs while completing the marathon. I walked by a couple of snakes, too, which was a little disconcerting.
• Pain - One of my friends described his first marathon as "excruciating," and I now know what he meant. The last 3 miles were incredibly painful, which really surprised me. This kind of pain something I would not like to experience anytime soon.
• Books - I listened to 2.5 books during the marathon. This is a great way to learn and exercise at the same time.

This is around mile 15. I was still feeling pretty good at this point. I am looking old.

When I came home from the marathon, I was feeling pretty messed up. I stopped by Chipotle for a Veggie Burrito, showered, and fell asleep for 4 hours. Later that night when I woke up, I found that my feet were so sore that it KILLED to walk on the cracks between the tiles in our kitchen. That was weird.

I am happy that I accomplished my goal to complete the marathon this summer. It took many weeks of training, and I still didn't feel quite prepared for the difficulty. I had set a goal to complete 36 miles on my 36th birthday, but at this point (the day after the marathon) I am not too sure. As far as completing another marathon, I may likely try it again, but I'm pretty sure I won't do it for quite a while.

The 2014 Bear Lake Half Marathon (Utah)

Well, I have successfully completed my first half marathon race. I trained pretty hard over the last 2.5 months, and it has been a really great experience. Here's the route I ran for the Bear Lake Half Marathon: http://mammothmarathons.org/maps/bear-lake-half-marathon-map.php . I'll share some pictures below.

Here is all the stuff I laid out the night before. I only slept about 4 hours, which was irritating.

Me before the race. I feel my legs look really short in this picture, kind of like the characters on Punch-Out.

It was SO COLD. I wish I had brought a jacket for the run. I think I could have worn it for most of the race. 

Here I am approaching the finish line (I am the black dot in the middle). That is my daughter cheering for me in the foreground. 

My beautiful, supportive wife Katie also cheered me on.

This guy Henry  has run over 900 marathons, which I thought was pretty cool. 

Tips For the Next Race

I learned a few things on this my first official endurance-style run:

1. Bring a jacket. It was so cold this morning that my hands went numb. This was a problem when I couldn't get burrs out of my socks because my fingers weren't working.
2. Use running socks. Apparently there are socks that prevent blisters, but I just ran in cotton socks. I didn't get any blisters, but the bottom of my feet were hurting and still feel pretty sensitive.
3. Do it again. It was a great experience, overall, and I am looking forward to my next race.

This was a great experience, really, and I plan on continuing my running. As I mentioned in a previous post, I plan to run 36 miles on my 36th birthday. (Actually, it will probably be the week after my birthday due to some scheduling issues). I am not entirely sure how I am going to do this - today's run was pretty tough, and I only have 3 months to prepare. But I am excited to keep working toward it and believe that I will get there.

Running and Physical Therapy

I have set a crazy goal to walk/run 36 miles on my 36th birthday this September. I've never done anything like this before (accept the week-long 50 mile hike/bike ride I did as a Boy Scout of America which was a lot of downhill riding and mosquitos). But, barring any injury, I am going for it.

In this quest to run 36 miles, I've been seeking the help of several professionals. I've been working with a physical therapist for the last 3 months, and she has helped me to build my strength so I can avoid injury as much as possible during my training.

Video Analysis
My physical therapist recommended that I have another expert physical therapist do a video analysis of my running. The first thing the therapist did was have me take off my shoes and walk around in increasingly ridiculous ways. She was apparently observing my gait to see the mechanics of my joints. She then placed several blue stickers on my legs and had me hop on the treadmill where she took video of me running.

When I run, I sometimes imagine that I glide gazelle-like across the asphalt, the ground flowing beneath me. This is what I think I look like when I run:

After running on the treadmill for about10 minutes, we reviewed the video of me running on her ipad. She showed me several areas in my running that could be improved to improve my running. However, I must admit that I was a little distracted by the two most obvious observations of my running:

(1) I am a handsome fellow, - this I expected - and

(2) my running did not in fact look like a gazelle bounding freely in the meadow. It looked, in fact, a little more zombie-like, similar to this:

The therapist emailed me several exercises to work on over the coming several weeks to make my running and walking more efficient, so I guess I'll start working on that. Just 4 months to go until my 36 miler!