The Hardest Thing I Have Ever Done

It's been 24 hours since I ran the Harrisburg Marathon, and I have been trying to decide if saying that it's the hardest thing I've ever done is an overstatement. But I think it's probably correct to say that the last nine miles of this race were the mentally and physically most taxing accomplishment of my 32 years. In my four years of high school football I'm sure I came close to the physical fatigue of this race, but I did not have the mental anguish. Conversely, my graduate studies posed signnificant mental hurdles, but you don't have to jog 26 miles when writing your 80 page paper. So I think it's safe to say the last nine miles of this marathon have no true equal in my life.

The race was fun for the first 13 miles. It was a beautiful day: 63 degrees, partly sunny, no wind, fall colors, lots of cheering spectators including my wife, who surprised me by showing up several times throughout the course. She has really been a great support in this whole journey and it was awesome to have her there.

But I made a few rookie mistakes that really cost me near the end of the race.

The first mistake was starting too close to the front of the pack. I run 10 minute miles pretty consistently, but I started near people who ran nine minute miles or faster. So I was being passed quite a bit, and mentally that caused me to speed up, because it felt like I was going in slow motion. At the five mile mark I was at 45 minutes. That's a nine minute mile. I should have been a half mile back. I was using too much energy trying to maintain a pace for which I hadn't trained.

My second mistake was failing to walk at the water stations long enough. In training I walked for a full minute. But again, no one in the race was walking at the water stations, so I felt compelled, for no reason at all, to walk less at the water.

My third and most fatal mistake was trusting the race organizers when they said there would be gel packs available at the water stations after 13 miles. Gel is a small pack of high carbohydrate and electrolyte ooze that you eat while running to give your muscles energy. Long distance runners have to eat to keep going. I trusted that the gel would be there, but it wasn't. I got one pack at mile 13, but after that no other station had any gel. By mile 17 I could tell I was out of fuel. That's when I started to pray that God would give me strength to finish the final nine miles without the necessary energy. Miles 18-20 were all hills. When I got through those hills I was completely drained without any hope of refueling, and I still had to run six miles.

The final six miles I was in severe pain. Every muscle hurt, including my arms. A headache was forming due to the lack of calories. Everything in me told me to stop, and I had to battle through those thoughts. At one point I just had to tell myself to stop feeling bad about not having the calories, that nothing was going to change my situation, and that if I stopped moving I wouldn't start again. So at mile 21 I just started pushing myself and preaching at myself not to quit moving for any reason. It was a pretty surreal moment.

When I crossed the finish line, all I can remember is people cheering followed by people asking me if I was ok. I must have looked pretty sapped. Rachel came and gave me a big hug, put my medal around my neck, and wrapped a solar blanket around me. At first I couldn't enjoy it because I thought I was going to be sick or collapse. Neither happened.

A friend recently said if you can run a marathon you can do anything. It does feel a little like that now. Right now I can barely stand up, but in a few days I'll be back at it and, who knows, I might even sign up for another one.