Just When I Knee'd You

As a follow up to the previous post I will try to describe the immediate reactions I had to running my half-marathon.

1. Cold
2. Hunger
3. Pain

Post run my body "cooled down" quickly and wholeheartedly. I'm concerned about where the blood actually went, because I am certain I lost all of it from my feet and hands. My heart rate was still in a healthy range. So my only guess is that emergency repairs were ordered on my muscles and my brain was like "Oh, shush, Appendages. You spend all of the times complaining about the cold. If you keep up the whining, I'll take all of the blood away." And then it did. The end.

Left: Zombie Hand of the Tundra

Even after a properly long shower I was in a state known as "shivering wreck." The only solution I had was to put on as many layers as I had energy for and to crawl under all of the blankets. I wasn't sleepy but I was horribly cold.

Don't get me wrong my legs were leadened. But muscle pain is familiar. What was not familiar was the level of hunger I was experiencing. Complete no brainer tip that everyone else probably remembered:

Eat food before a marathon. Even if you're only going to do half.

I had a half a bowl of corn flakes pre-run. Lite milk. No sugar. Not saying that I don't have fuel reserves to stay in motion well beyond the corn flakes. But my body wanted easy to use sugar when all it had was muscle and fat for a large portion of the run. The last three kilometers my stomach was growling non-stop. Chugging electrolyte-laden beverages made the pain go away for a while and I forgot about it almost entirely when my temp dipped. Lying huddled under the blankets, the degrees inching up, I was suddenly in the mood for all of the food. I wanted to eat everything. I settled for steak.

Food, glorious food.

I had pineapple juice with it which burned my mouth horribly. But I think it made me feel better than beer would've.

The weird thing was for the next week I was insatiably hungry. I wanted to eat constantly. Any portions, any food. It felt like my body had checked me out of the entire being-healthy process because clearly I was trying to kill it.

The last little remainder which I haven't quite gotten over is the pain. Much like what I imagine happens during childbirth, I have forgotten the pain experienced during the actual event. On the other hand, all of the evidence of impact has been slow to heal and go on its merry way. I have a foot that has blisters on every toe (thanks, Rain, you dumb jerk). The other foot lost its big blister, which was at the tip of the baby toe. It hurts all the time now. My left knee had been playing up from about half-way through the run. It is now in a place where it hurts to use it but it also hurts if it stays in one place for too long. My trainer is convince we can work on it over time.

Only issue is I signed up for a 10 k next month.

Running, Man.

I have officially completed a half-marathon! I did an underwhelming job of it, but technically done is the best kind of done!

I ran into a number of SNAFUs which I will be sure to avoid in the future.

1. Preparation
2. Technology
3. Biology
4. Weatherproofing
5. Hubris

Preparation
The evening before the run, I was not in bed by my bedtime. With a wake-up planned at 6:30am we didn't get home from karaoke until around abouts midnight. We went to karaoke because it was a friend's birthday and it was great to see everyone. We were even promised food. There was lots of singing, which was fun. There was also heaps of booze, which was tempting. Finally, there was an absence of food, which was sad. We left the shindig at 11:30 so the car wouldn't get locked in the parking garage overnight and we skedaddled home. On the way we made an emergency stop at Wendy's (the dinner of champions!) and power-choked-down all of the delicious badness before high-tailing it to bed.

Technology
I have lost all of the trust I have ever had in my friggen alarm. I mean...on any given Saturday morning, I'm up before the butt-crack of dawn anyhow, but for some reason my alarm fails to set itself the one Sunday I needed it. Luckily the cat was freaking out or we might not've made it. As it was we had 15 minutes to eat, dress, and otherwise get ready before we had planned to leave for the event. There was no time for morning coffee.

We luckily did make it on time. Traffic was clear and there was plenty of parking. There was about a 10 minute walk which made for a barely acceptable warm-up. There was even enough time for some stretching and a coffee as I tried not to attach the running number to any skin-parts. The men's half started first, so I was left to my own devices for the next 15 minutes. I spent most of this time not being prepared for what I was about to put myself through. By the time it was time to start I was anxious enough to get a move on. The first kilometer was going to be over the beach and I was a bit worried about going too fast over the soft sand and getting tired, so I fired up the MP3 player and focused on pacing. I was pretty proud I was holding a slow steady rhythm coming up to the first k marker just as the *BEEPBEEP* of the dying device sounded off through my headphones. 20 km left to go.

Biology
It was morning, I had skipped most of my usual start-of-the-day routine and the coffee was clearing through the half-bowl of corn flakes that made up my breakfast. As a human, stopping was required.

Weatherproofing
Right at about the same time my MP3 player decided it wasn't in the mood for a half-marathon, the skies opened up and started to mourn the loss of music with me. That's right, it started raining. I was wearing a jacket and in the chill of the rain I forgot all of the advice I read about not wearing things that will hold water against you when it's raining because it will become stupid cold later on. That was a problem for future me. I just let the jacket "block" (absorb) all of the rain water as I trucked along, gaining at least a kg of water weight along the way. At about the 5 km mark, my foot landed in it's first real puddle. Any hope of making it through with anything resembling dry feet was gone. So why even bother trying to avoid all of the other puddles? (<--This is a stupid statement. Always avoid all of the puddles. No puddle is worth it.)

Hubris
I had hit about 9 km and it wasn't the end of the world. I was a little dehydrated but I was warm from holding the pace and I hadn't fallen into the mud going down the mountain. Everything was going to be fine. I was avoiding looking at the time and avoiding thinking about much except for my pace. And then a marathoner showed up. She was friendly and cool. This was her 6th marathon and she was studying kinesiology and asked if we could run together. We chatted for a while and kept running together. At the 10 km mark, my knee started to twinge. If left on my own I would've likely stopped and stretched it out. But I needed to not look like a lame-o and so I pushed through. I mentioned the tightness going up the next hill and it was recommended that I run through it. At the 13th kilometer we had to part ways; she had a time she was aiming for and I was pretty sure I hurt myself. After a good stretch and a short jog I realized I would be walking much of the rest of this event.