mothers day marathon

When I was 27, I resolved to do two things before I turned turned 30. One of those things was to run a marathon.

Being a recreational runner of 3 miles every few days, I'd been itching to do a marathon (26.2 miles) to see what my body was capable of doing. I wasn't looking forward to 5 hours of running, but felt I needed something to train for. So, I spent 4 months in the summer of '98 training for the Chicago Marathon. I ran what is arguably one of the best (and flattest) marathons in the world and had a great experience. I didn't care about my time (5:08), but just wanted to finish.

One of my colleagues was inspired by my endeavor and asked me to train with her for the Disney Marathon. So in January of 2000, we completed that one too. This time however, I was assaulted by knee pain that caused me to lose 3 weeks of training time and my overall race time was slower. I figured that was the end of my marathon days.

After Riley was born, I'd been thinking about running another marathon. I can tell that I'm running faster and smarter at 39 than I did at 30. I think this has a lot to do with knowing my body better and being able to adhere to good training principles. (I was much less disciplined when I was younger.) I've been watching the "Spirit of the Marathon" documentary that came out last year and was freshly inspired by the Nova's "Marathon Challenge" where the folks at Tufts trained 12 sedentary people to run the Boston Marathon in 9 months.

I've been running between 3-5 miles during my lunch break and 6 miles on the weekends. The past couple of weekends, I tried a 13 mile loop at Lynn Woods and found that I felt pretty good and recovered quickly from it. That led to the idea of trying to run 26.2 on Mother's Day weekend while we would be visiting Jonathan's mom in Connecticut. She lives in on a 1.1 mile loop that is quiet, with very little traffic.

So yesterday afternoon I took off to start the first of 23 laps around the neighborhood with much fanfare from Jonathan, Mom and her neighbor, Laurel. They set up a card table with water, gatorade & signs encouraging me on my quest. I had forgotten that there were three hills to climb in every loop -- two small and one long one. I define "long" as any hill that takes more than 20 seconds to clear. The long one took at least 50 seconds to get to the top. Good thing I like hills.

It only took about 7 miles before I began to get the first signs of soreness...by the half-way point, it was full lower-body discomfort. The last 8 were pretty hard...every lower body joint was hurting and the downhills were killing my knees. I think marathon running is a lot like natural childbirth...you get amnesia about how incredibly painful it can be. And yet, we do it again...

They say that 50% of running a marathon is mental. I can testify that in each one I have wanted to quit. I question my sanity in doing this to my body. But once I hit the 18 mile mark, I figure I might as well put up with the pain for the remainder. So, I pressed on and was happy to have done so. I found a few additional folks in the "bleachers", who after seeing me pass their house over and over, inquired as to how far I was going. They were cheering me during my final laps which made it feel more like a "real" race with cheering fans on the sidelines.

I ended up finishing about 20 min faster than my previous best time, so now I have tangible evidence that my fitness has improved in the past 10 years. More than that, this little experiment proved that I don't have to put myself through 4 months of heavy mileage in order to run another one. I'm always amazed at what the body will do when you push it a bit harder (overload) and then give it time to repair and rebuilt (rest). It's usually more than you'd expect.

My wonderful husband was there as my support the whole time, riding along and chronicling the event for me. Here's some of the pics and video he captured:

The aid station with gatorade, water, signage and Laurel Wreath:














At mile 7 (the pain begins):

At mile 20 (tight and sore and sooo ready to quit):

At mile 25 (one more lap to go!)

The Finish Line:

The Victor and her Laurel Wreath:














Each time I go out for a run, I say a prayer thanking the Lord for the ability to continue doing it and the enjoyment I get from it. 10 years ago, I thought my marathon days were over -- I'm grateful for the opportunity to do it once more. Maybe again, someday.

I still dream of running Boston...

Shelby