Ugh. It was ugly. It was almost as ugly as the Presque Isle, Erie, PA, marathon we did a couple years ago in October. Both were flat, both were in cool weather. Both should have been easy because of that. But both entailed repetition, covering the same territory. And both were done while my weight was elevated. I have no idea how much I weighed during the Erie Marathon, well maybe I do but I'm not saying. It was at least ten more than I weigh now, I think. And for every pound you carry over what you should be to be fit, that slams down on the ground, reverberating up your body many times over your actual weight.
It is tough to be a fat runner. I know from experience. But here I am, once again attempting to out run my fork.
For the NCR Trail Marathon I was up maybe five or seven pounds more than for the Baltimore Marathon last month. And I felt it. It took me maybe a half hour longer than the Baltimore Marathon. My right foot didn't hurt as bad as it did with the Erie Marathon, but like the Erie Marathon, I psyched out around the 14 mile mark. That's pretty early to be mentally dumping the race. In the Baltimore Marathon I knew the race route, knew my city, felt good despite the heat and the hills. I did good for me, for what my usual timing is on a marathon.
But in the month between the Baltimore Marathon and the NCR Trail Marathon I put on pounds, I began eating comfort food, I felt stressed with my daughter's wedding planning and venue hunt (and the upcoming costs for her and for us and the fact she couldn't/wouldn't make decisions whereas I make them pretty quickly and live with them), and stressed with our house hunting, first in Delaware and now, focusing on North Carolina in the mountains. (OK, so maybe I am dragging my feet on the house selection, waiting for just the right fit, just as my daughter is dragging her feet on the ceremony and reception venues, waiting for just the right fit).
Also, I was physically beat up coming into the NCR Trail Marathon. I carried two big piles of our possessions which were in boxes and bags in our friends three story attic. I placed them all on the bottom floor near the door while Dave was out golfing. Most of those boxes were full of books. Heavy. I did all this by myself, except for a couple larger items that Dave helped me with the next day. Then we loaded it all in our old motorcycle trailer and drove it all to our storage shelter and packed it all in. More lifting. I felt my age because my back and neck were very sore from carefully navigating the three flights of stairs, trying to avoid bumping into framed paintings and plants. This was the Tuesday and Wednesday before the NCR Trail Marathon. I began taking Tylenol and was on the mend but not quite there.
The NCR Trail marathon is a small marathon, maybe 600 runners between it and the half marathon run that started on much the same route and just ten minutes after the marathoners took off. It might be around the same size as the Erie marathon. Both are definitely small compared to the Baltimore, or the mother of all marathons, the Marine Corps Marathon. Why would that be important, you might ask? Because if you're slow like me, you risk being the last one in.
Who cares, I should ask? Well, me. But let's look at that. Of all the people in the world, how many never even consider running a marathon? How many are overweight, content to nurse bad habits of ill health, laying on couches watching sports instead of participating, dropping potato chips between the cushions, dribbling ice cream on their clothes?
Of all the people who decide they want to run a marathon, how many even finish the training and show up for the race? Of those, how many finish? We've now whittled the population down to a, yes, I'm going to use this phrase - elite few.
So I have always known I was a slugger, a slogger. Slow runners sometimes refer to themselves as penguins which is funny because that is how we look running so slow our feet barely seem to be moving us ahead. Penguin runners come in all sizes and shapes and ages. But I think of myself as an old clydesdale. I'm big and strong and not meant for speed. I'm slow and sure despite my aging frame. I get the job done. I always have.
Next to the slender, truly elite athletes I look out of place. When they quit a marathon it is because they are having an off day and are afraid of injuring themselves. I have always finished what I start. Knock on wood. I say I will crawl to the finish if I have to. That is an exaggeration, but I am not too proud to walk, to try to cover a limp, to put on a smile to cover my grimmace. I know I can do long distances by hiking, running, walking. I can get the job done. But the mental part of knowing people are waiting for me, that I might be holding race volunteers up from shutting down the race and going home, holding up family members and friends who are finished and ready to leave, that bothers me some and I fight those thoughts as I make my way down the path, suffering but stubborn.
Dave volunteered at the NCR Trail Marathon, along with our son and grandson. They were all at the 5 mile mark which was also the 21 mile mark since the NCR Trail Marathon, run on the NCR Rail Trail, is an up and back run. Dave said all the other volunteers, members of the sponsoring Baltimore Road Runners Club, knew each other and probably most were truly elite runners. Dave said some where commenting that people who run 12 minute miles or over shouldn't even be doing marathons. I'd like to say shame on them for their impatience, their long view down their noses towards those of us who are also fellow runners just trying to accomplish something difficult in our lives, maybe the most challenging thing we've ever done. Runners coming in last in marathons are struggling. It takes lots of guts to be last. The pain is ugly, and we do it knowing most everyone else is finished. We are stragglers. Dave said he gave one elite runner a ride from the 21 mile mark back to the finish line because he said he just didn't have it that day and didn't want to injure himself. He made sure to declare that he'd run ultras, finished hundred mile races before. He wanted people to know he wasn't a loser. Whoop-t-do. He didn't finish the NCR Trail Marathon and I did.
I remember once lamenting after Airborne School that my roommate there was discharged out of the military due to shin splints so bad that it made her physically unfit to continue in the Army. She had just come out of Officer Candidate School and those were the days of running in combat boots for everything. Her legs were all beat up by months of running on asphalt in non-running gear. She was a much more gifted runner than I was, faster by a lot.
Yet I graduated jump school and she did not. Survival of the fittest, I was told.
It is tough to be a fat runner. I know from experience. But here I am, once again attempting to out run my fork.
For the NCR Trail Marathon I was up maybe five or seven pounds more than for the Baltimore Marathon last month. And I felt it. It took me maybe a half hour longer than the Baltimore Marathon. My right foot didn't hurt as bad as it did with the Erie Marathon, but like the Erie Marathon, I psyched out around the 14 mile mark. That's pretty early to be mentally dumping the race. In the Baltimore Marathon I knew the race route, knew my city, felt good despite the heat and the hills. I did good for me, for what my usual timing is on a marathon.
But in the month between the Baltimore Marathon and the NCR Trail Marathon I put on pounds, I began eating comfort food, I felt stressed with my daughter's wedding planning and venue hunt (and the upcoming costs for her and for us and the fact she couldn't/wouldn't make decisions whereas I make them pretty quickly and live with them), and stressed with our house hunting, first in Delaware and now, focusing on North Carolina in the mountains. (OK, so maybe I am dragging my feet on the house selection, waiting for just the right fit, just as my daughter is dragging her feet on the ceremony and reception venues, waiting for just the right fit).
Also, I was physically beat up coming into the NCR Trail Marathon. I carried two big piles of our possessions which were in boxes and bags in our friends three story attic. I placed them all on the bottom floor near the door while Dave was out golfing. Most of those boxes were full of books. Heavy. I did all this by myself, except for a couple larger items that Dave helped me with the next day. Then we loaded it all in our old motorcycle trailer and drove it all to our storage shelter and packed it all in. More lifting. I felt my age because my back and neck were very sore from carefully navigating the three flights of stairs, trying to avoid bumping into framed paintings and plants. This was the Tuesday and Wednesday before the NCR Trail Marathon. I began taking Tylenol and was on the mend but not quite there.
The NCR Trail marathon is a small marathon, maybe 600 runners between it and the half marathon run that started on much the same route and just ten minutes after the marathoners took off. It might be around the same size as the Erie marathon. Both are definitely small compared to the Baltimore, or the mother of all marathons, the Marine Corps Marathon. Why would that be important, you might ask? Because if you're slow like me, you risk being the last one in.
Who cares, I should ask? Well, me. But let's look at that. Of all the people in the world, how many never even consider running a marathon? How many are overweight, content to nurse bad habits of ill health, laying on couches watching sports instead of participating, dropping potato chips between the cushions, dribbling ice cream on their clothes?
Of all the people who decide they want to run a marathon, how many even finish the training and show up for the race? Of those, how many finish? We've now whittled the population down to a, yes, I'm going to use this phrase - elite few.
So I have always known I was a slugger, a slogger. Slow runners sometimes refer to themselves as penguins which is funny because that is how we look running so slow our feet barely seem to be moving us ahead. Penguin runners come in all sizes and shapes and ages. But I think of myself as an old clydesdale. I'm big and strong and not meant for speed. I'm slow and sure despite my aging frame. I get the job done. I always have.
Next to the slender, truly elite athletes I look out of place. When they quit a marathon it is because they are having an off day and are afraid of injuring themselves. I have always finished what I start. Knock on wood. I say I will crawl to the finish if I have to. That is an exaggeration, but I am not too proud to walk, to try to cover a limp, to put on a smile to cover my grimmace. I know I can do long distances by hiking, running, walking. I can get the job done. But the mental part of knowing people are waiting for me, that I might be holding race volunteers up from shutting down the race and going home, holding up family members and friends who are finished and ready to leave, that bothers me some and I fight those thoughts as I make my way down the path, suffering but stubborn.
Dave volunteered at the NCR Trail Marathon, along with our son and grandson. They were all at the 5 mile mark which was also the 21 mile mark since the NCR Trail Marathon, run on the NCR Rail Trail, is an up and back run. Dave said all the other volunteers, members of the sponsoring Baltimore Road Runners Club, knew each other and probably most were truly elite runners. Dave said some where commenting that people who run 12 minute miles or over shouldn't even be doing marathons. I'd like to say shame on them for their impatience, their long view down their noses towards those of us who are also fellow runners just trying to accomplish something difficult in our lives, maybe the most challenging thing we've ever done. Runners coming in last in marathons are struggling. It takes lots of guts to be last. The pain is ugly, and we do it knowing most everyone else is finished. We are stragglers. Dave said he gave one elite runner a ride from the 21 mile mark back to the finish line because he said he just didn't have it that day and didn't want to injure himself. He made sure to declare that he'd run ultras, finished hundred mile races before. He wanted people to know he wasn't a loser. Whoop-t-do. He didn't finish the NCR Trail Marathon and I did.
I remember once lamenting after Airborne School that my roommate there was discharged out of the military due to shin splints so bad that it made her physically unfit to continue in the Army. She had just come out of Officer Candidate School and those were the days of running in combat boots for everything. Her legs were all beat up by months of running on asphalt in non-running gear. She was a much more gifted runner than I was, faster by a lot.
Yet I graduated jump school and she did not. Survival of the fittest, I was told.
