1st Marathon...done
Here's the lowdown on my Grandfather Mountain Marathon. I cut my lantus down to 8 units the night before and didn't take anything in the morning. I woke up and ate breakfast at 3am so I could take a full bolus. My blood sugars that day were between 140 and 100 the whole day until the night when they rose a bit. So success on the glucose front. I then woke up at 5:30 and headed over to the marathon. It was a bit unnerving as everyone I talked to seemed to be pretty experienced and when I mentioned that this was my first one, the comment was always a variation of "well, you sure picked a hard one to start with" or "well, this is the hardest road marathon in North America"... I mean, come on - that is a little discouraging. So we go down through town and pass the mall - and there is Dave. I didn't know whether he would be there but suddenly there was company. So we went along and headed uphill. Somewhere in the first 5 miles, Dave says (in typical Dave fashion) "I'm just going to run the whole thing" Well he had his fist bottle of perpeteum and he woke up late and didn't eat breakfast... why not? On we go. I see a couple of former students who were manning an aid station at mile 7 and another former student and her mom a few times further down cheering us on. So, all was going well - I was drinking 3-4 cups at each stop and taking my endurolytes and had no cramping issues. About half way in a biker went past and said "is that Steve?" Turns out I had my Diabetes Training Camp shirt on and Chuck (the guy from ASU that is analyzing all the data I have been slack about putting in) was out on the route cheering people on. So we had a Triabetes 3 even without John - and with a breath of serendipity. Speaking of John - the guy who tricked me into Triabetes with just a hat (he later has given me just an absolute crapload of diabetes/training stuff) - I wore the hat as kind of a reminder of the whole year journey to this point. At one point late in the run, I was musing about the whole thing and a car came by with the license plate RWH something - well "RWH" was taped inside my hat at one point because that is John's mantra - "Return with Honor". You can get to his blog (not that he ever updates it) for a complete rundown of RWH... the link is on the side of my page. So I notice a twinge in my I.T. band in my knee just past half way. Hmmm. Thats odd. Never had any IT issues. It only hurt when I walked and then started up again. Hmmm. Well, it progressively got worse. I could run fine, but no walking hills....ahh, thats what I get - an injury with a sense of irony. Dave fell back with what we later think was simply dehydration... another lesson to learn. His blood sugar was holding steady at almost 200 and he still had some perpeteum as well as a gel he found on the road! So I wasn't too worried about at that point. When I saw Chuck again I sent him back with a pack of Clif Blocks for Dave - but he didn't need them. I never hit a wall or felt bad (of course, I wasn't killing it time wise) and I was happy about that. The last 2 miles Ashley drove up beside me and cheered me on - on the back of the minivan was the message that you see from Zoe... It was perfect - I was laughing and moving faster than I had much of the run. I love that little dinosaur. (in case you don't know - Nigel Marvin is like the crocodile hunter that goes back in time - its a BBC production - we play this all the time...seriously) The finish is on the gravel track at the Highland games with bagpipes playing and tons of people cheering - very nice. 4 hours and 36 minutes. 10 and a half minute pace. I was hoping for a little better but I was so glad to make it to the highland games before the cutoff (5 hours). So off I limp (by this time it is really painful to walk - had to straightleg it) back to the road to meet Ash and Zoe and Adia. Very sweet. And today my leg seems much better - I've got some worries, but I think I will be fine.
