The Marathon
It’s over people. At long last, it is over. The pain and torment which was experienced, the discipline of training, the constant mental reminder to run every week, the hoping that I would not sprain my ankle or hurt myself before the historic day; it has all ended. For Sunday, I completed the 26.2 mile course of hills and heat that is the Austin Marathon. There were thousands of people cheering from the side lines and holding signs. I remember around mile 16, I man held a sign that said “No Pain, No Gain.” I yelled back, “I must be gaining a lot!” He laughed. But after it’s all ended, I really have. There’s a lot of perspective to be found in accomplishing something so difficult. You can conceive of what it might be like, but you don’t get it until the finish line… or the day after in my case as I was too busy recovering the day of.
The good news and the bad news. The good news is I did finish AND I never pissed blood (score!). The bad news is my time was dramatically longer then I thought it would be. I was keeping pace exactly as I planned up to mile 21; I was on track to finish in 5 hours and 45 min. But after that, my body quickly shut down on me. 
My stomach became nauseous and I got light headed. I knew I wasn’t going to make it much further. I saw a police man sitting on a truck on the side lines, I staggered over to him and said, “I’m getting really light headed.” I leaned against the truck until another man brought a chair for me to sit in. That’s when the cop noticed that I wasn’t sweating. I couldn’t believe it. I rubbed my forehead and arms which had earlier been soaked now to find them completely dry. It’s a really strange phenomenon. Apparently, I had become dehydrated. There were no water reserves left in my body to continue to sweat, which is weird cause I’d been peeing all morning. That turned out to be the worst part of the beginning, other then the hills, was finding a place to pee. The cop gave me a bottle of water and I drank it in small amounts. I couldn’t drink it all at once, cause I felt like I was gonna throw up. I knew I didn’t want that to happen, cause that would deplete any more water I had in my system and I would definitely be going to the ER. I was 2 blocks from mile marker 22. Only 4.2 miles to go. I had to continue. But first I wanted to be sure I was okay, cause at that point, I couldn’t even stand up without getting dizzy. So the cop (wish I got his name) called an EMS and he came up on a motorcycle like 10 minutes later. He took my vitals and did a glucose blood level. 118/78 and a HR of 122. Glucose was normal. He offered to have the ambulance come by and give me a 12 lead EKG. That sounded like a good idea since I was having some chest pains. I couldn’t place if it was my stomach or lungs or heart, so might as well cover everything. Another ten minutes and the ambulance was there. By this point, I’d finished the bottle of water and was really needing to pee again. They put the electrodes on me and did a 12 lead, which they let me keep 
, and everything was basically normal. No flutter, no extreme st elevation, all good. So I decided I would continue and just walk the rest of the way. First I had to stand… okay that worked out, now gotta pee… a guy pointed me to a wall where I could go, felt sooo good. I signed their declination of admittance form and thanked everyone. Then I started walking. I met up with Roger and Matt along the way and then my parents. They helped me walk the rest of the way. The clincher was I knew I didn’t get a medal if I finished after 7 hours and I was gonna get a medal dang it. It took me more then an hour to walk that last 4.2 miles. And the last 0.2 I gathered up enough strength to run across the finish line just under 7 hours. So close, but I made it. With the help of family and friends I made it. Thank you all who believed in me and saw it through to the end.
This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done and definitely the most painful (on purpose). From it I took a realization of how great my life can really be if I make it that way; how I really have little to complain about and should not stress as much as I do. This and other events in my life continually remind me that I have great friends who care and support me and I’ve found that I really NEED to know that. So I’m glad that I do. Plus my parents are always so supportive and helped me feel better after the marathon. Big thanks as well to Jen for the advice and especially the Shot Blox! Super helpful.
This is more of a summary. I’ll give a play by play on the marathon later on for you interested blogos out there. Dude, I just coined a new cyber word!