Almost two weeks ago, I ran the 3.5 mile Chase Corporate Challenge race in the pouring rain. Three days later I had a raging cold. The cold has hung on. The first days were the worst, with me being barely able to sleep since I would wake up with coughing fits. And I was totally stuffed up. I have since been able to sleep without the coughing fits. But I am still coughing. I have toned down my workouts to easy rides and runs, and cut out the swimming. The running really made me cough.
A co-worker basically told me that I was going to the doctor. I tried to call the doctor Monday, but the office had already closed. So I called them yesterday morning, and got a 12:45 appointment. I went to the doctor, and he sent me for an X-ray which was right downstairs. Unfortunately, they were closed for lunch, and I had to wait until 1pm. And there were a couple guys ahead of me. I finally managed to get my x-rays about 1:45 or so. I went back upstairs to the doctor’s office. He showed me the x-rays. My lungs were mostly clear. Though he pointed out some faint lines. He thought these my be mucus blockages. He prescribed an antibiotic called Azithromycin. He sent the prescription to the Target store where I get my HCTZ.
The prescription was supposed to be ready in about an hour or hour and a half. So I walked over to the Target about 3:30. They had it ready. The girl rung it up, and it came to over $30. Ouch! She asked if I had insurance. I said yes, and gave her my card. The pharmacist said it would be at least 30 minutes before she could enter it. What? I already waited for them to fill it, and now I had to wait to pay for it? I told them I would came back after work.
I came back about 4:30ish. The pharmacist was totally apologetic. She had entered my card. The Azithromycin now rung up for $7. Way better. But the pharmacist gave the girl some coupons, and now it rung up for $1. Way cool!
There were six tablets. I took two yesterday, and I am supposed to take one tablet each following day until they are gone.
I asked a doctor friend of mine (who is a runner/cyclist) if I could exercise with this, and he said no. I need to rest. Ack! I take my last pill on Saturday. I have a very busy day on Saturday anyway. I am walking in a parade, and watching a black belt test.
Maybe I will do a bike ride on Sunday. I am scheduled to ride for 3 hours. Maybe I will do a nice easy 3 hours, weather permitting. Being sick, sucks!
I was supposed to have run 15 miles yesterday. But I had slept poorly, and slept in. Then ran a bunch of errands. I just didn’t feel like running at all. I finally start running in the evening. I managed to get 9 miles in.
So this morning, I got up and ran another 6 miles, to complete the 15. But then I was scheduled to ride my bike for two and half hours today. So I headed out for my ride. I did a 20 mile hilly backroad ride to a Burger King and got lunch. Then I rode home, stopping at a couple garage sales along the way. According to MotionBased, I did about 2450 feet of climbing over the 40.5 miles. I have a century ride coming up in two weeks. That will be interesting.
Due to the holiday, I didn’t have my normal Sunday evening karate class. I love karate, but it is nice to have a day off every once in a while.
I am scheduled to run intervals tomorrow. But I may sneak a short ride in tomorrow. Maybe down to Subway for subs and back. The intervals are ugly. 1 mile warmup, 1200m,1000m,800m,600m,400m, 1 mile cooldown. I hate 1200m intervals. And am not real big on 1000m intervals either. Oh well. Gotta do what I gotta do.
I got involved in this event when my uncle called me and asked if I wanted to participate. My aunt was the captain of a team. It was taking place down in Washington, Pennsylvania, about a five and a half hour drive from my home. I said yes. He also said I could participate in the torch relay. Hey, that sounded like fun. So I said yes, sign me up for the torch run.
Relay For Life is a 24 hour relay walk that benefits the American Cancer Society. My aunt is a cancer survivor. I have lost some relatives to cancer, including my mom and a grandmother.
I was part of a team, but as the event got closer, I decided to try to walk for the entire 24 hours myself. And I wasn’t sure how far I would be running in the torch run. My uncle said I could run the whole thing if I wanted. I had only planned to run a segment. My uncle said that it was about 8 miles. Okay. No problem. I was scheduled to run 13 miles that day anyway. I wasn’t sure how tired I would be, and how it would affect my walking later.
The day before the event, I googled the torch run course. Google said it was 6.4 miles. But later we drove it, and it turned out to just under 5 miles. But it was very hilly. I was a little leery about running the whole thing. I mean, it would be weird if there was a solitary runner with the torch running each segment, and here I am tagging along. But my uncle said there would be a group of runners. Well, okay.
The morning of the event, I got up, and we headed to the site. I caught a bus the start of the torch run. Lots of pictures were taken. Most people were wearing the event t-shirt. I hate running in cotton, and the shirt was 100% cotton. I wore my tuxedo jersey. I figured that would be fun. I was told we would be running at maybe a 10:00 minute/mile pace.
We would have a bus in front of us dropping off people. We would have a bus behind us picking people up. And we would have a cop driving his car in front of us, and he would stop and take pictures. We started about 10am. The first and last runners would be ceremonial people. I ran along side the first guy. Not sure who he was. SomeVIP. He passed the torch on to another person and stopped. Basically, I just followed along as the torch passed from person to person. The first runners ran at a comfortable 10:00 pace. The third or forth person to get the torch was a high school kid who took off at maybe 6:10 minute/mile pace. I ran faster and kept up with him. After a bit, he passed the torch on to another kid who ran at maybe 6:30. The kid who had just run, stopped and got on the bus. A horrible thought went through my head. Would I be faced with a series of fresh young runners who would sprint away for their segment, and then stop. ACK! Some of the next runners passed on the torch, and then continued running. Even the kid who had stopped and got on the bus, came back and started running with us again. The rest of the runners ran at 6:30-8:30 paces, with one exception being an adult runner who ran at maybe 10-12:00 pace and gave me a breather. I did get to carry the torch for a short distance.
As we approached the high school where the event was being held, we stopped in a lot across the street. It seems we got there 15 minutes too early. Go figure! So we hung there, until it was time to go in. A politician lady carried the torch in. She was a commissioner or something I think. There were speeches, and stuff. Then I left to go change for the walk. I changed into denim shorts, and a tech shirt, hat, trainers, etc. I smeared on sunblock, and got my mp3 player.
I started walking. I was walking at a fairly fast pace. 15:00-16:00 minute miles. I was passing many people. The inside lane was reserved for runners of which there were few. I stayed in the second lane as I could, but was having to go around many slow people.
Every 4 laps, we could stop and get a little plastic foot. They gave us shoe laces, and we would string the feet as little necklaces. So you could check out other people seeing how many miles they had gone.
I just walked, and listened to music. Occasionally, I would walk over to our tent to refill my sports bottle with Diet Pepsi, or go to the concession stand to get some food. A roundtrip walk to the tent was probably close to a quarter mile.
The track was crowded. A few people stood out. There was a girl dressed in goth clothing with knee high boots that couldn’t have been comfortable to walk in. One kid was wearing one of a couple different masks, and would walk in the opposite direction high fiving people. I just kept walking.
I did talk to one high school aged girl who I had seen often. Her name was Jericha. It turned out she was part of a 3 person team that was taking 30 minute shifts. So when she was done, I said I’d see her in an hour. Soon she would be back. Then I got to know her friends Emily and Sabrina. So I would often walk with them as they helped distract me from my hurting feet and legs.
The weather report for the day was strong thunder storms. Well, they were right. We had several waves of pounding rain. When the first one came, I was near the massage tent. I thought, hey, what a great time for a massage. They had massage chairs, and would massage our necks and backs. Hey, it felt good, but it was my legs that were hurting. *shrug*
My shoes and socks were wet. After a while, I changed into some dry shoes and socks. I had a large blister on one toe on my right foot. But I didn’t have anything to pop it with. My feet hurt to walk in them at first, but then it subsided. I think my feet were a bit swollen.
Around 9:00ish, my aunt and uncle were leaving. I had walked about 25 miles I think at that point. My wife went with them, and left me my car, just in case. They tried to talk me into leaving, saying that it didn’t matter how far I walked, that it didn’t mean any more money. But I was still hoping to walk all night. My cousin Nick showed up, and walked a few miles with me, then had to leave.
I managed to collect 30 of the little plastic feet before they ran out of them. There had been a bunch of the table, and then in a little while, there were none left. I think some people had grabbed whatever was left. Probably kids. But my Timex Ironman 100 lap watch was still counting laps beyond 100 laps. I wasn’t sure what would happen when I passed 100. Around lap 125 I think, it started displaying a message Memory Full every time I hit the lap button. But it was still counting laps. Probably just not recording the lap times anymore.
They started playing mellow music over the speakers. Great, people have been out here all day, it’s getting late, people are getting tired, and they are playing mellow music! Ack!
At sometime, maybe around 10pm, they gathered everyone under the tent. They had some speeches, and stuff. It was perfectly timed to be during a torrential downpour. And about the time the speeches were over, the rain had mellowed. I was still wearing shorts at this point, but went on put on some nylon shell pants over them. It was starting to cool down. But that seemed to be the last of the rain.
I liked walking under the big stadium lights. But at one point they lit candles inside these bags along the sides of the track. They had people’s names on them. Cancer victims I think. They shut off the big lights, but still had some smaller lights. So now we walking with these glowing bags. But now the track was clogged up with people looking for specific bags. I never saw any of the bags catch fire, but I had seen a few that had already burned.
At some point one of the relay team captains got on the PA system, and started singing and playing guitar. She was good, but not really my style. So I listened to my mp3 player again. At least when I wasn’t walking with the high school girls, or Jericha’s boyfriend Shawn who showed up later.
My feet felt like hamburger. I had completed 160 laps (40 miles). They were getting ready to start karaoke in the infield. They had also started handing out poker cards when you completed a lap, which you would collect to try to get the best hand. I had gotten one card. But I could feel the blisters on the balls of my feet now, and they were hurting. It was hard to walk now. I had ignored blisters on the toes. I had ignored the cramping calves, and the knee pains. I was getting tired, but doing okay. But the blisters on the bottoms of my feet were a little too much. Since I still have races coming up, I didn’t want to cause too much damage, that would prevent me from training or racing. I decided to call it a night. It was probably about 1:45am. With the walking and running the torch run, I had completed 45 miles. Actually, I had probably done a couple more miles if all the incidental walking were added up. Not bad. That was at least 12 miles farther than I have ever covered in a day.
I went out to the parking lot, and crashed in my car. I slept fitfully, but got up about 6:30 or 7am. I went up to the tent, ate some cookies, and drank some Diet Pepsi. I went out to the track. The people were all walking slowly and sort of looked like zombies. I found one of the high school girls and walked a lap with her. Then I went back to the tent, and started breaking stuff down. My wife, aunt, and uncle showed up, and we took down the tent. I was talking to one of the organizers, and she suggested I go have the ambulance crew treat my blisters. She said they had been sitting there all night, and were bored. So I went out there, and they said there was nothing they could do for blisters. Huh? Not drain them? No super glue. No duct tape? I need to play with coating my feet with Vaseline on training runs. Maybe that would have prevented the blisters.
They announced a final lap. So I went out and walked the final lap. Then they gave out awards for fundraising. Our team raised over $12,000 (I only raised a small part of that).
Then we started our drive back home. My wife drove, and I mostly slept. But we did stop and get some food along the way. And I did take some time to drain the blisters.
Having qualified for the Boston Marathon, and then to actually run, I had to buy a Boston Marathon jacket. I is sort of manditory. I knew that it wouldn’t be cheap, but the price was only of minor concern. Sort of like when I go to do the Ironman in August, I will probably be buying a bunch of Ironman stuff.
A bunch of friends of mine who had already gotten their jackets, were talking about the 2+ hour lines to get the Boston Marathon jackets in expo. There was a line to actually get the jacket, and another line to pay for it. But I had a friend who is a veteran runner, and local. He told me I could get the same jacket at a store near the finish line. So after our group finished brunch, a few of us went off to the store.
The store was Marathon Sports, and was location near the finish line of the race.
We went in, and the little store was crowded. But we could still move around easy enough. The jackets were hanging on the wall. They had the $60 screen printed jackets, and the $90 embroidered jackets. I wanted the embroidered one. Who knows if I will ever run the Boston Marathon again. I tried the large, and the sleeves were a little short on my long arms. So I tried the XL. It fit nicely. I got in line and less than 10 minutes later I was at the register. When the guy rung it up, the total came to under $90 with tax. Huh? I asked if it was on sale or something. Then I realized that the guy had given me a 10% discount because I was there with my friend who coaches local charity teams. Way frigging cool! So not only did I not have to wait in lines for over 2 hours, I also got a discount on the jacket!
Thanks Jeff! You rock!
In the morning I got up, got ready. I wore my long sleeve tux shirt and leggings because of the coldish temps. I met James and Jon in the lobby. Connie, Hannah and Helen would head to Boston later. It turned out the hotel had arranged for cabs. We shared the cab with another girl for whom this was her first Boston Marathon also. We expected the cab to take us to the State Park, but he took us right the athletes village! So cool!
We staked out an area under one of the tents. There were lots of people, and more arriving all the time. We kept an eye for others. I made several trips to the porta potties. When I was standing in line at the johns, I thought about going over and having the LVMers paged. But then I saw Hill in line to do that. I yelled at him and got his attention. He had the announcement made, and after I hit the john, I joined everyone over at the bin inflatable bottle.
ElJeffe said the lines over in the other for the johns were very short, so we headed over there. They turned out to be longer now. We got in line. Hill and I talked while waiting. Keven came walking by having already made his way through the line. Apparently Hill and I got in the wrong line. We got closer and closer, and time got shorter and shorter. We managed to get there, and then hustled to the start, dropping our bags off at the buses on the way. It was probably the better part of a mile to the start.
I entered corral 12. I was waiting for the start, talking to some other people when I looked over and saw James and Jon. I joined them. We hung out till the start.
We heard an announcement that the race had started. Everyone started walking slowly forward. Occasionally we would jog a few steps, but then walk again. But by the time we hit the start line, we were running.
I ran with James for a bit, but he took off. There was a girl dressed up as Wonder Woman running. I said I liked her outfit, and she said she liked mine.
I expected mostly downhill, with a couple short uphills. But it turned out to be sort of rolling hills with more down than up. Jon caught up with me, but I dropped him again. He passed me somewhere again, but I didn’t see him go by.
I had already kind of given up on running a 3:30, but figured I would run easy, have fun, and try to run close to a 3:30, or at least a sub-4 hour marathon. I high-fived countless people. Many people liked my tux outfit and I got many shouts of go Tux-Man or Tux-Guy. I stopped and petted a couple dogs along the way including an Airedale terrier like we have. I took my usual 25 second walk breaks every mile. But the rolling hills were beating me up.
At mile 12, I started hearing the scream tunnel, and saw it at mile 12.5. It was awesome. All these girls screaming. There were so many signs saying kiss me. Kiss me, I am a senior. Kiss me I am first year. Kiss me I am Chinese. Kiss me, I love runners, Free Kisses. I kissed and was kissed by many of them! I wish I had slowed down a little more here and gotten more pics. They liked my tux shirt too! I ran into Greg (Park City Runner here) and he took a picture of me I think. I though it was with my camera, but I didn’t have a pic. So maybe it was with his camera. The line of girls was much shorter than I thought it would be. A little passed the scream tunnel, there was a girl with a sign saying “Free kisses for lesbians”.
At the halfway mark, I was on pace for a 3:40 marathon. But I was slowing down, and starting to hurt.
When I came to the start of the hills at mile 16, I decided to walk up the hills. My legs started to hurt more and more. I would run down the hills and flats, but found that I was running so slow. People were flying by me. I passed the Hoyts at mile 17.5. I found Jeff around mile 19.5 I think. He walked with me for a bit. I asked if this was Heartbreak Hill and he said no. Ack! He had to get going. I thought I might see he again, but didn’t.
I had taken Gels at mile 5, 10 and 15. People were also handing out candy and other stuff. I regularly got Gatorade at the aid stations, and poured cold water in my hat. I ate some candy. On heartbreak hill, there were guys handing out canisters of oxygen. I tried one, but it didn’t do anything for me.
When I got over the hills, I was having a hard time running at all. When I did run, I was running at maybe 10:30 min/mile pace, and everyone was passing me. I started surrounded by people with blue bibs (#’s 1-13999), and was now surrounded by a sea of yellow bibs (14000+). I was going into a head wind. And it was cold now.
Eventually I couldn’t even run anymore. It just hurt too much. My legs were a bundle of cramps. Quads, hams, calves, inner thighs. I saw a medical tent about mile 23, and threaded my way through the runners to get to it. I asked if they would massage my legs. They did. I had a huge knot in my right calf. Whenever the guy hit it, I would jump. After maybe 5-10 minutes, I decided I should go. They said I could catch the T to the finish. I told them no, that I would finish this thing if I had to walk it. And I did. I literally was forced to walk the rest of the course. Every time I tried to run, something would cramp up. It hurt to even walk. People yelling go tux-guy were now starting to get a little on my nerves. I yelled back at one of them “I’m Gonna Finish!” I think I had my teeth clenched for much of the last 5 miles or so. I kept seeing other people walking, but they would always start running again.
The Hoyts passed me back around mile 25. I tried to jog with them, but couldn’t. I just walked. Finally I saw the finish line. I tried to run the last little bit, but would just cramp up. I gave up and just walked. I passed a woman who was limping to the finish line. She had her ankle wrapped in an Ace bandage. I walked across the finish line. I could have maybe done a Wazzu, but this finish did not merit it. I finished 4:47:02. This was my second slowest marathon. The only marathon I have run slower was my first.
I walked and walked wanting to get the chip off, and get my medal. I also wanted my clothes, and food. It was a long finishing chute. After standing in a crowd, I got my chip off, got my medal and a hug from the volunteer. A little bit later I got a space blanket, and some food. The food did not appeal to me much. A bagel, granola, and some chips. I also got a banana. I wanted to eat, but I was cold and also holding the blanket around me.
I saw a volunteer with a wheel chair. I asked her if I could sit in it to put my sweat pants on. She said no. Gee, thanks! I found another volunteer and he let me sit in his wheel chair to put them on. I just didn’t think I could manage to put them on while standing. And if I sat on the ground, I might not be able to easily get up.
I made my way to place where families were waiting. We had arranged to meet at Q. Maybe we should have chosen X since it was the first one I came to. Q was around the corner. I saw my wife and gave her a hug. James, and Jon and family were still there. I was surprised to see them still there. I told James that, and he said that I would have waited for them, and I said yeah I would have.
Due to the roads being closed, we had to walk way around to get to the subway. Did I mention it hurt to walk? Just as we got to the subway entrance, there was a cop turning people away. He wanted us to walk to the next subway entrance. WTF???? I was pretty pissed off. I told my wife that if we got to the next one, and it was closed, I was going to punch someone, and that I might be going to jail. But just as we started to leave, they suddenly opened the subway entrance again. There were multiple sets of painful stairs. They let the people who had run the race, ride for free. That was cool. Our Charlie Card still has a few rides left on it.
When we got back to the parking area, we walked to our cars. Helen and I headed to a Burger King where I got a Whopper With Cheese Value Meal. Yummy!
When we got back to the hotel, I went down and soaked in the hot tub for a bit.