The Marathon

Well the big news of the week is the marathon.  Seven weeks ago we found out that the Boston Athletic Association was going to put on an official Boston Marathon Shadow Race for us.  With only seven weeks to train only five of us from the OR signed up.  I followed a modified training schedule but had to continually ice my foot that has been giving me trouble.  I will spare you the details of my gastrointestinal problems associated with long training runs but suffice it to say if you need more info on the subject Google ‘runner’s trots’.  I felt like I was more prepared for this marathon than for either of the other two I have done, which is not really saying too much.

At 2:30 am on April 18^th three out of the five of us that signed up made our way to the starting line.  The other two had to regrettably fallout due to injuries or illness.  I had learned from past bad experience not to change anything on the day of a big race.  Many a blistered foot cursed the new pair of shoes saved for race day.  I was dressed in the Air Force PT shirt and shorts that I had trained in but was required to wear a reflective belt which I had not trained with.  We joined all 600 runners in a gym called the clamshell and received our safety briefing.  The safety brief was the usual war time race spiel about what to do if a rocket hit etc.  We had a group prayer and then lined up at the starting gate.  In preparing to run for four hours I had borrowed an arm band to hold my iPod so that I could listen to the book I have been using to distract my mind during these voluntary torture sessions.  A fire truck honked its horn three times holding the last blast to let us know it was time to go.  The race had begun.  The course was comprised of two 13.1 mile loops which crossed over the end of the flight line and traversed the entire base.  The first hour was quite enjoyable.  It was dark and cool with a very light breeze.  There was lighting rolling around in the far distance illuminating the clouds above.  I felt really good and was maintaining a pretty quick pace.  I had made a goal to finish in less than four hours but knew that if I didn’t make it I would still be just as happy to finish.  Every two miles there were water and Gatorade stations with lots of volunteers to cheer you on.  There were medical aid stations at 5 mile intervals. The medics would come right up to your face to see how you were doing.  By about mile 14 I was beginning to be acutely aware of my mortality as my hips and knees started to burn.  My feet felt like they were swelling up and filling my loosely tied shoes.  As I reported a while back, I had done my 20 mile training run mostly on a treadmill.  I ran the initial 7 miles on the treadmill then ran on the road for 6 miles and came back to the treadmill and finished off with another seven miles.  By the time I hit 20 miles during the actual race it became evident that miles on the treadmill are easier on your body than are miles on the pavement.  Exhaustion threatened to claim me at about mile 23.  My heart and lungs felt great but my poor joints were pretty unhappy.  There were different places on the course where you would get a different colored rubber band to prevent people from cheating (which I may have done given the opportunity—not really!).  As you would come to a checkpoint there would be tons of people there shouting encouragement.  I was very impressed that other runners on the course who looked worse off than me would also take the time to encourage each other on.  By the end it was not your body carrying toward the finish line but your stubborn will.  I crossed the finish line at 3:46:49.  As I crossed the finish a volunteer placed my medal around my head and another volunteer had me walk with her so she could decide if I needed medical attention or not.  I guess I passed the test because she let me go back to the clamshell where the morning had started and have pictures taken and eat and drink.  Official certificates were printed out showing our times and when I went to pick mine up the time had been put in wrong but the poor guy submitting the information looked so frazzled I didn’t have the heart to ask him to fix it. 

After it was over I stretched out and waited for my other OR friends to finish.  When they were all safely across the finish line, we took some pictures together and then I went back to the hospital to shower.  It wasn’t until the water touched my skin that I realized I had some fairly significant chaffing in some fairly significant locations.  Once I was clean and dressed I made my way back to my dorm room and got into bed at about 9am.  I must have had some significant adrenaline reserves because my temporal arteries were pounding away making it pretty uncomfortable to lie on my sides.  So for five hours I lay awake staring at the underside of the bunk above me and thought about the race I had just finished.  It was hard and exhausting but I had done it.  I felt good about the accomplishment and realized that there is great satisfaction in doing hard things.  Easy things don’t ever make you feel like that.  You never finish a 3 minute workout consisting of 3 pushups with a minute of rest after each one and have that sense of self-mastery.  Our desire to do better and be better than we were yesterday will be evident in the pace at which we each run this race of life.  It sounds cheesy but it is true.  The difference between an ultra marathoner and a couch potato is desire.

Well that story sort of took all the time I have tonight.  My replacement gets here in a week but I have learned not to get too excited about any particular date so at this point I can’t say when I will be leaving Afghanistan.  I love you all and think of you often.  Have a great week.