26.2

My goal for this year was to write a blog post every month, and I did pretty good until October.  October totally got away from me.  Damn!  I had a fairly good reason, or excuse, however you want to look at it.

In March I committed to running the Chicago Marathon as part of Team Danny Did.  For those of you unfamiliar with the group, their mission is to advance public awareness of epilepsy and SUDEP (Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepy), to protect those with epilepsy and to prevent deaths caused by seizures.

At the end of June, I began training in earnest, following the marathon training plan of my local running club, the Badgerland Striders.  Every weekend between late June and early October I had to find time to do my long run.  I started at 8 miles and eventually worked my way up to 20 miles.

Planning for my weekly long runs involved many moving parts, from watching the weather forecast to making sure I had someone to watch my son; to determining my route and figuring out the water sources on said route if I didn’t run with the aforementioned Striders; to making sure I had enough GU packs to keep me sustained and energized.  As the runs got longer, the time it took to complete them got longer and longer, making the planning process more complicated.  And, God forbid it rained all weekend.  On one of those training runs I was forced inside and ran at the track at a local ice rink.  Imagine running around and around a track for three plus hours.  It was mind-numbingly boring but I had to do it.  The long training runs needed to get done if I was going to be successful on marathon day.

Then, about a month before marathon day, the fear starts to set in, the fear of something going wrong and keeping me from running marathon day.  It’s about this time that I started worrying about every ache and pain I felt as the miles accumulated, thinking I would lose my mind if anything kept me from race day.  By this time, I had devoted close to three months to reaching this goal.  And, this time, I was running or a cause near and dear to my heart, which made me want to complete the task even more.

Finally, October 13th came and I was ready to go.  I had made it safely to race day.  What a relief!  Nothing was going to stop me now from finishing the task.  Not the rotten sleep I had the night before.  Not the stuffy head I woke up with compliments of the start of a cold I got from my son.  Not the aches and pains in my right hip, leg and knee….NOTHING!  I was ready to get this show on the road.

The marathon started in waves, with the first wave taking off around 7:30 AM.  This is when the world class athletes took off, along with other runners much more talented than I.  I was part of the last wave of the last wave taking of around 8:30 AM.  The wretched refuse of the running world.  They wanted us in the start corrals at 7:30 AM, so that meant waiting outside in the chilled October air for an hour waiting to go.  The weather was going to be perfect for the run, about 45-50ish degrees and sunny, but it was not perfect for standing around.  By the time I finally got to the start line, it was close to 9:00 AM.  My feet and body where chilled from having stood around in the cold so long, so when I took off, I felt like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz and my feet felt like I was wearing cement shoes.  No jack rabbit start for me.  Not like that was going to happen anyway.  Who am I kidding!  About a mile in, I started to loosen up and get into my pace.

This marathon was by far the biggest I’d ever done, with 45,000 participants.  10,000 of those runners were like me, running for one of 170 different charities.  Every mile of the course was lined with people cheering us on, which was amazing.  I took the opportunity to slap hands with lots of people on the course, mostly children, elderly folks and two handsome young men with Down Syndrome by the Charity Block Party.  The course winded through many different Chicago neighborhoods.  When I visit Chicago, I rarely get much past Michigan Avenue, so it was cool to see other parts of Chicago.

Things were going pretty well until I hit mile 20.  It felt so good to get that far, but then I realized I still had at least another hour or more of running to go.  So close, but not so close.  This is where the body started breaking down.  The right hip and leg pain started kicking into high gear.  I wasn’t the only one feeling that way.  Everyone else around me looked like they had had it too.  Some were walking more often than they were running, some were by the side of the road stretching their fatigued muscles, some were visiting the Biofreeze tents that were now at pretty much every aid station.  We were meandering through the final stretch looking much like zombies.  Nobody was quitting though.  We had come way too far to quit at that point.

One of the best billboards I saw along the course said “Run Like Clowns are Chasing You.”  Anybody who knows me knows I hate clowns.  They just plain creep me out.  I saw this billboard somewhere between miles 20 and 24.  Much as I hate clowns, I chuckled and thought to myself that not even the creepiest of clowns chasing me could get my body moving faster at this point.

Also showing up somewhere between miles 22 and 24 were the fine folks at Goose Island Beer Company, handing out beer for anyone who was sick of hydrating with just plain water or Gatorade.  I choose to partake.  What the hell!  It was only a little dixie cup portion and maybe it would deaden the pain in my leg a little.  It didn’t, but it was still worth it.

Finally, mile 26 came.  Only .2 miles to go.  The longest .2 miles ever, and uphill to boot.  What masochist designed this course!  But then, it appeared, the sweetest sight ever, the beautiful banner proclaiming you had finished…you had finished the marathon.  You were a marathoner!  Although I had finished a marathon before, the feeling you get completing such a feat never gets old.  It’s such an amazing feeling of accomplishment.  Such a euphoric feeling.  It’s even better when they place the medal around your neck, the physical proof that you finished.

Both times I ran a marathon before, I vowed never to do it again, but then I did.  This time I made no such vow, because you never know.  I don’t have any plans to do so in the near future, but will I do it again?  You never know.

As I think back on this experience, now more than a month in the rear view mirror, I find a lot of similarities between training and running a marathon and raising a child with special needs.  Some days are easier and you think to yourself, I’m crushing this.  Some days are like miles 20-26, a lot harder and you feel like you’re not going to make it.  Like you’re a failure.  But you do keep on going because not moving forward is not an option, not in running a marathon, or in raising your child.