Full disclosure: I am currently high as crap on Vicodin. I'll explain that at the end.
So - I wandered down to the start a little early and decided to go outside to warm up, which was nice because nobody else was out there. I happened to find my parents setting up camp, I'm sure my dad decided they should get there extra early and find the perfect spot. I was remarkably calm, even though I had no delusions of making the Olympic team, and no serious race plan. I felt limber, light, quick. I got back to the staging area and changed shoes, did some drills, and headed down to the start flanked by scores of other hyper skinny white kids with bad haircuts. After the nervous strides and standing around shivering from nerves more than cold - we jogged to the start, and then, like every other race, they shot a gun (well, Frank Shorter shot a gun) and we all started to run. I started in the back, but kind of got up into the middle of the pack in the first mile and hung with some of the Hanson's guys, and a few others that I recognized, putting seed times and names together, guessing who I should run with. I felt like I was jogging along, hoping the first mile to be really slow. Unfortunately it was a 5:16, so I had started on pace more or less. 8 miles later we were running about the same pace. At this point I passed my father, who told me to "run my own race". I never take his running advice. For some reason I was sure he was right. I slowed down a little. The group ahead pulled away. I would see most of them again. So I found myself alone. Just like most of my recent races. I had a peaceful feeling for several miles. I'm so used to running alone. I reached halfway in 1:07:50, much faster than I've gone through a first half of a marathon before. I still felt smooth and untired. Shortly thereafter I notice that the runners ahead of me were coming closer. People were dying off already. for the next several miles I picking people off. Many whom I recognized as much faster runners. This kept me charging along. I started to feel the first signs of a slowdown at around 19 miles. I was feeling fine, but my quads were starting to solidify and my IT bands were slowly hardening. I knew though that I wouldn't bonk. I knew I'd get there, and I'd still run a decent time. Even as I slowed, I was still catching runners. I got back into downtown and through the 26 mile mark and knew that I'd at least run a PR. A guy came out of nowhere in the last 100 meters or so, but I had no intention of racing anymore. We looked at each other and congratulated one another on a solid race. I crossed the line in 2:20:31 getting 56th place. I walked around and realized this was the least terrible I'd felt after a marathon. I was encouraged that I'd made another step in figuring out how to run a marathon. That maybe I'll be able to keep progressing and work my way into faster and more prestigious races.
Later that day my knees swelled up huge. I hobbled down to the elite hospitality room and grabbed some terrible pizza and a coke. Halfway through the can of coke my back tooth started aching. This happens to me all the time since I haven't had dental insurance or much money since I was a dependent. This time it didn't just go away after a few minutes. I didn't sleep more than an hour or so that night. Sunday was a long day. I wasn't able to eat anything either. I was so tired. The pain became excruciating. Finally this morning I got to an ER (everything else was closed for MLK day) and got some antibiotics and some pretty potent pain relievers. All I can think about now is getting out and training. The Vicodin is only helping a little bit, and I was able to suck down some soup. All I want to do is get out and run. The high temp tomorrow is 9 degrees and I can hardly speak from the pain killers, all I want to do is get out and run - just to move and let everything else sit still.
