The Redding Marathon is this morning. I have sincere excitement for all the people that put in the work to be able to accomplish this feat. Even though running is dumb.
My marathon adventures can be blamed entirely on Stefanie. When we were on a nice 2 mile trot, I said “We should train for a half marathon.” That would have been a great time for her to say “No.”
But she didn’t.
Having never run more than 2 miles, formal training was in order. We signed up for the Fleet Feet training club and it was incredibly valuable. A series of “speed” work Tuesdays and increasingly lengthy Sunday runs, and we were “ready” to run 13.1 miles in Sacramento on St. Paddy’s day.
Because teen boys are what they are, Dirty (13) and Calvin (15) decided that they’d run it too. Had they trained at all? Absolutely not.
We headed south and Calvin set things in perspective when he said “we’re going to be running as long as this drive is.”
The weather was horrid. Cold, with sideways incessant rain kind of bad. But we’d come too far to back out now. So for roughly 2.5 hours, we plodded along. Dirty wasn’t nearly as long. He’d called Brian shortly after the race started. Brian expected there was some crisis. “I’m bored.” That’s right, he was not only NOT dying, he was far ahead of our whole group, bored, and still able to call and carry on phone conversations. He finished in under 2 hours.
Nevertheless, we were cold to the bone but felt accomplished.
Eventually, the toenails grew back (that really is a thing) and the idea of running the full 26 miles seemed good.
Once again, Stefanie didn’t talk sense into us.
This time we got very thorough training plans from reputable sources like Pinterest.
The thing they don’t tell you about marathons, is that it’s not the race day that’s hard. It’s all those weeks leading up to it when you have to put in so many miles to get your knees, feet, hips, heart and most importantly for me brain ready to just keep going. You dedicate hours every week just building up to the longer run.
The Redding Marathon of 2017 was on a cold but thankfully sunny January day. Well over 4 hours of running but there was that strong feeling of accomplishment at the end when I gorged on free bananas.
I really do hate running. I’m not wired for it. Especially for long distances. I have the attention span of a gnat. It hurts. It doesn’t build muscle. I develop dependency on Gu or Cliffs Shot Blocks, pure sugar and caffeine intended to get you over the humps of wanting to quit.
But I really do like being able to say I’ve done cool things like run marathonS. Plural.
Still, nobody stopped me.
The second marathon was December, 2018. Not to sound too much like the peaked in high school person who says things like “if coach would have put me in, we’d have gone to State,” but I was hurt. These child bearing hips are not built for the punishment of running. But, dropping out when others were still running wasn’t a choice.
Luckily there were things to keep me going. The aforementioned shot blocks, hilarious marathon signs, Brenda who slowed WAY down in the last few miles to make sure I kept going, bands and fans, and interesting people to see.
Some highlights include the rather substantial mountain of a man who passed me 2 hours in wearing pink crocs. Sur, he had the action strap engaged, but still! I also enjoyed being passed by a cop around the same time running with his full belt on. Those things are heavy so you know. His gun was duct taped in, obviously.
I have photographic evidence of both of these stallions. Why? Because I was so fucking bored and running slow enough to be able to goof off on my phone.
Thanks to the internet, my stellar time of 4 hours and 55 minutes will live in public forever. But I’m jus grateful to have finished. I crumbled at the end and came to realize that the need for this sense of accomplishment is completely out of my system.
Obviously, I’m complaining about it more than needed. It is a do-able task and I encourage anyone to give it a shot if they want. The reward is worth it. But no more marathons for me.
Totally over it. Like no need to ever do that again.
So anyways,…. Stefanie still doesn’t talk sense into me and she and I (and some others) are doing a Paddle Triathlon in July. It’s only 6 miles of running, but I’ll probably complain and eat like it’s a whole 26.2!
Bifocals and Barbells 