Well, Cal.E. was allowed one phone call or text today. She texted me, since she is still enraged at her dad
for putting her in rehab. I think that she will realize that it was for her own good one day. .However, she chose me to text this time. This is a transcript of our conversation
D.: How are you doing in rehab, Cal.E?
C.” Better now that I found my cat toy, d.c. They only allowed me to bring one toy into rehab, and I lost it
it. Thank goodness I found it.
D.: Where was it?
C.: IN the last place I looked. Because, as you know, d.c., once you have found something, there is no use looking for it anymore
looking for it anymore. (Credit Kathy Nimjay as Peggy Hill on “King of the Hill” for that one, folks.)
On with excerpts from “Beyond the Thirteenth Mile; The Iron Man Chronicles.”
CHAPTER 5:
THE MARATHON
Bike leg; the bottom of Sugar Mountain loop one: What did my computer register? I tried to slow down when it hit 38 because that is as fast as I have ever gone on a bicycle, even in Lubbock at the Buffalo Springs One-half IronMan distance triathlon, when I was coming down THAT 15% grade hill. I know I saw two fours before I stopped looking. Oh, well, I survived. Only five more times to go. I am glad that this is not the RUN course for this race. It is a full marathon.
I was not sure that I could even finish my first marathon, much less this race four years ago. I guess that doing something difficult, like running a marathon, gives one self confidence..”
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There is a charm to doing something that is extremely physically difficult that changes one's mind about his or her limitations- both the mental and the physical ones. Riding a bicycle 102 miles in one day was this event for me.
Riding a bicycle up hills with as much as 13% grades can be extremely draining on one's physical as well as mental capabilities, but it can be just as satisfying and exhilarating as it can be draining. How someone can ride a bicycle, (even a top-of-the-line one) for 2300 miles over three weeks, as the elite riders in the Tour De France do every year, is still beyond me. Running a marathon is beyond most people's comprehension of his or her abilities as well, but I decided to give it a shot.
(I actually heard the following conversation between an experienced runner and a novice at a 5-k fun run.) Novice to experienced runner, "I've never run this far before, but I kind of like it. What other distances are feasible for a novice runner like me?"
"Well, after this, there are five-mile runs, they are okay. If you enjoy running that distance, you might try a 10-K (6.2 mile) run. If you enjoy that, you might try a 10- mile run. Anything over that," said the more experienced runner, "separates the real crazies from the sane people. "
Much of running, cycling, and even swimming is as mental as it is physical. That is to say, one's body cannot do what one's mind tells it what one’s body cannot do.
There are many exceptions, though, as my mother had told me as a teenager when I first started having knee problems. She told me the story of Glen Fry, the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes, who was told that he would never walk again (much less run) after severely burning his legs as a child. A determined soul, Fry literally tied his hands to a plow, allowing a horse to drag his legs until he could walk, and then run behind the plow.
(Aside: Reading the record books, you may notice that, officially, Roger Banister is recognized as the first athlete to run a sub-four-minute mile. That is the official record. Fry’s record run is not recognized as the first sub-four-minute mile because he ran it with the aid of a twenty-five- mile- per- hour tailwind. It was also a training run, not one completed in a competition. This forbade his amazing feat to be recorded as the first sub-four-minute mile. The accomplishment still amazes me, however.)
Willis Reed and Kurt Gibson both pulled off heroic events playing their respective sports (basketball and baseball) on one good leg. Mickey Mantle played all but one game of his illustrious hall-of-fame major league baseball career on one good leg. He stepped on a sprinkler head chasing down a fly ball in his first game in the major leagues. This resulted in knee problems that plagued him throughout his brilliant major league baseball career. Lance Armstrong is a story unto himself.
(Aside: Yes, I am now aware of what Armstrong was accused of cheating by taking performance-enhancing drugs when he won his record seven consecutive Tour De France’s. However, the allegations are still unproven, in my and many other people’s opinions. For anyone to win seven consecutive Tour De France bicycle races, with or without pharmaceutical help is still an overwhelmingly amazing feat.)
I don't know how professional athletes function while in pain, but I have discovered a few tricks of my own. Thinking about something pleasant or doing complicated math problems (such as figuring out my splits- how long it took me to run each mile) can be helpful. (Distraction has been proven in the medical field as an effective way of dealing with pain. Since taking painkillers before an endurance event is not allowed by the rules of the respective organizations that govern these events, I highly recommend this technique).
The Houston Marathon has a warm-up series that can really help novice runners build stamina as well as confidence leading up to the marathon, and I needed both. Different running coaches use differing approaches, but, for someone like me, who is trying to do it with a minimum of coaching, the warm-up series sounded like a good idea. It consists of three runs, a 20-kilometer (or 12.4 mile) run, a 25-kilometer (or 15.5 mile) run, and a 30-kilometer (18.6 mile) run. The runs are staged about 3 weeks apart (to allow the runners to sufficiently recover) and are done in this order.
I was under no delusions of grandeur about being able to break the 4- minute per mile barrier. I simply wanted to be able to say, truthfully, that I had completed a marathon. As a result, I decided to participate in the warm-up series of runs before attempting my first marathon.
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Swimming, for the most part, is all about technique. More often than not, the person with the best technique swims the fastest. Cyclists can be given a slight edge by investing in superior equipment, and sprinting is all about God-given speed.
Distance running, however, is all about hard work, mental toughness, and determination. Not your run-of-the-mill determination, though. The type of determination to which I am referring is the type of determination that southern high school football coaches refer to as having a "fire in your belly." An average athlete, with enough hard work and determination, can make him- or herself into a decent long distance runner, if he or she has the desire to do so.
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For my first two marathons, I set the same goal- four hours. The first had its share of setbacks: Planters fasciitis in my left foot that required a cortisone shot in it (as well as missing one warm-up race to rest it). This is a fairly common injury in novice distance runners, and the only real cure is rest; since it is largely due to overtraining.
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I was a sprinter when I ran track in high school, mainly because I had convinced myself that I could not run the distance events. I had, however, begun to enjoy my training runs with Adelina, and my times were steadily improving. I decided that, if my right knee wasn't going to stop me from running a marathon, neither was my left foot (or the nasty sinus infection I developed two weeks before it.) Deep down I knew that if I ever wanted to complete an IronMan distance triathlon, I must first see if I could complete a marathon , no matter what the circumstances.
This race, though, had more than its share of challenges. A monsoon came with gale force winds on the first warm-up race, and that wind was in the face of the runners at the finish of the 20-K run. The next race, the 30-k, was in sub-freezing temperatures at the start. It also started in the dark, with over 2000 runners bumping into each other at the beginning. This did not prepare any of the runners well for the balmy, 80-degree temperature that the actual marathon would bring, despite the fact that it was held in mid-January. (Aside: this is not unusual weather for Southeast Texas in January. However, January and February are the coldest months in the year in this area of the country, making early in the year dates the most feasible for endurance activities. The Houston Marathon is usually held the day before the Martin Luther King holiday. This gives most of the participants some extra time to recover).
With my adrenaline flowing at a maximum, the first 10 miles flew by. Unfortunately, around mile 15, my right knee slipped out of place, and I had to re-adjust it. However, the crowd of thousands of spectators kept me going until mile 20, where people began to fall over into the grass. To worsen the mental strain, I began to have cramps from dehydration, and by mile 25, I was in severe pain. "I quit!" I heard myself say loudly, fully intending to pull out of the event even though I could see the finish line from my viewpoint. (Mile twenty- five is at the crest of the largest “hill” on the course - it was really an overpass. {Houston is famous for its flat terrain, making this course a desirable one for those trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon}). Fortunately for me, an alert spectator intervened. "You've run 25 miles," he said, "certainly you can run one more." Looking both in front of and behind me, I could see no other competitors for at least one hundred meters. This made me believe that particular person had been placed at mile twenty-five with his encouraging words just for my benefit.
"You're right, " I said, encouraged again. I trotted as fast as my fatigued legs would carry me, finishing about 50 minutes over my goal, but I did finish, which still put me into a pretty elite group.
My second marathon would go much more smoothly, largely due to the fact that I completed all three warm-up races as well as an additional 10-K along the way. I made a new friend in this warm-up series, and I was able to pace on her, a finisher at the Hawaiian IronMan the year before, for the better part of two races. The weather, however, was about the same, and I again missed my goal, although I did improve my time by about 15 minutes.
My focus was not on myself for this race, though. I, instead, focused on Jerry, who was just getting over a hernia surgery. He had decided to run the marathon, anyway. He was committed to a charity to raise money for it, and so he was determined to finish. He did so in five and one half-hours, the legal time limit at the time. ( The time limit was later raised to six hours.)
After the marathon, Jerry decided to join Luke and me in our quest to complete a full IronMan distance triathlon.
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