Marathon for IN860.....pain is good!

It is well past time for me to update my loyal supporters on the result of my November marathon.  Having scheduled this race for shortly after my Bolivian sponsor tour I was a bit undertrained which wasn't such a good thing.  Actually, undertrained was a bit of an understatement since the longest distance I had run since the PREVIOUS November's marathon was 13.1 miles.  So...nursing bronchitis that a caught from a plague-ridden woman on my flight home from Miami and sleep deprived I decided that regardless of my time, or what may hurt I was going to complete 26.2 miles for the sake of all the children at Morningstar CDI in India.  The day started out chilly but I felt good and actually pretty confident.  This is me at the start line:

Cheery enough, right?  Well I figured to take the pressure off I would start way in the back of the pack.  I quickly found another jogger and started some small talk at about the quarter mile mark.  The woman happened to be from out of state, but grew up in the area so for the next 8 or 10 miles I learned alot about the local history.  We met a few other "back of the packers" and had nice conversation.  I was actually ENJOYING myself.  I figured hey, I can DO this!  No problem right?  Um until about mile 13.5 when my body suddenly said "Hey, WAIT!  Why aren't we done?"  From that point on the next 5 miles or so were doable but not fun.  I had to think about my form and listen to music to make the time go by a little faster.  Definately not fun anymore, but tolerable I thought.   Until mile 19 or so.  When my legs decided to start cramping, my feet developed blisters in funny places and my back started to ache.  I tried my hardest to continue to run but a funny thing happened.  No matter how my brain told my legs to run and tried to move them at a running pace, the only thing I could do was walk.  For a couple of MILES.  And I was glad for that since my quads were screaming for me to JUST...STOP...ALREADY!!!  I was able to eventually start "jogging" again but by this time it was a very unattractive loping shuffle.  The path seemed never ending and I no longer judged distance by miles, but just convinced myself to get to the next aid station where I would walk and drink gatorade.  I finally got to about a mile and a half from the end and across the river could see the park and somehow picked Gene out of the crowd.  He was waving like a lunatic and it actually did make me feel better.  At about a half mile to go I came into the park and Gene actually ran with  me for a quarter of a mile, jeans and bad shoes and all.  By the time I got around to the finish line I was ready to cry.  The announcer apparently said my name but I never heard him.  All I cared about was getting my feet over the little blue line.  I grabbed my medal and plastered a happy face on for this picture:

 I look so happy...and it is such a lie.  But, you can't send pictures of yourself crying or puking to adoring children so I had my photo-op.  This was also an unfortunate error in judgement because I hadn't walked around to cool down and in the time it too to fluff my silver towel thing and pose all the muscles of my lower body seized up.  Gene offered to carry me to the car but I did still have some pride left so I ended up shuffling to the car.  It took me so long that it was all warmed up by the time I got there.  I could barely walk for the subsequent two days, but that matters not since pain is temporary and running/jogging/walking this marathon was a 5 hour testiment to my stubborness that raised $500 dollars for a donation to IN860.  I haven't decided if I will run this race again next year.  So far the answer is no, but I'm sure the memory of the agony will fade eventually and there are other projects that are close to my heart.  Never say never.