Now to find someone crazy enough to do it with me. I started talking to my good friend who was also not completely satisfied with his Austin time, trying to talk him into going with me. I don't know how, but somehow, it worked. He said he would do it, but only if he could run it pushing his 6-year-old daughter in a stroller. He got permission from the race directors, and at this point, there was no backing out. It also turned out that we were not the only verifiably insane people either as two more friends from our running group decided to come too, one ran the full and the other the half.
Missed the pre-race picture op, so got this one post-race, complete with encrusted sweat and 2 medals - one finisher's medal and one (spoiler alert) age group award medal.
So, 'redemption marathon'. What was I redeeming? My time? Well, that would be nice, but not absolutely necessary. What I really wanted to do with this race was to prove to myself that I could keep my head in it the whole time, not give up when it got hard or if I saw my time goal slip away and to have a good mindset the whole time. I wanted to run smarter and to not ever give up.
The first part of this goal, to run smarter, seemed to be a little doomed even before getting in the car to drive to Beaumont. My foot had started aching a little about a week after Austin. I'm pretty sure it was due to Austin and just took a few days to make itself known, but at this point, I was dead set on running another marathon, so I told myself 'it's no big deal, back off a little and it will go away'. Well, it didn't. I talked to other runners and many told me to change how I laced my shoes because of where the pain was. I did this, and it did help, so I thought that was it and kept running. The week before Gusher, though, I was still feeling it and starting to get a little worried, but I was not about to back out of this race (.....this is the point where my mom stops reading and calls to yell at me.....sorry Mom; you know how stubborn I am, though....), so I backed off running a lot in that last week, ran slower and fewer miles than I would have liked in the hopes that I'd be fine as I toed the line in Beaumont. The thing that made me believe I was not furthering an injury is that after a couple miles of running, it would warm up and the pain would back off or even go away. On my longest run between marathons (only 7 miles), it was sore the first couple miles and by the end, I didn't even feel it. There are some injuries, (like the plantar fasciitis I dealt with for nearly 9 months in 2011-12) that after getting warmed up, feel better and are perfectly fine to run on. I thought (or hoped, rather) this was one of those.
The day before the race, driving down to Beaumont, it seemed achier than normal - probably due, in part, to phantom pain making it worse, in part to the driving (it's my driving foot), in part to my attempt at using KT Tape to relieve some of the pain, which I apparently didn't do right, but mostly to the fact that it was actually achy. My friend made it known that he thought I should consider not running or just running the half, but he didn't push it, because he knew that I had made up my mind to do it, and pretty much nothing anyone said would stop me at this point. So, Saturday morning arrived, and actually, thankfully, my foot felt relatively really good. No pain while walking. 'Good!', I thought, 'It's just a soft-tissue thing and will be fine (knock on wood)'.
I almost never run with music anymore. In fact, for a while, I was fairly against running with music. But on the drive down the day before, I decided that I was going to run with music because I was afraid of what my mind might do if left undistracted through 26.2 miles of foot pain. I have a running playlist that I occasionally use on short runs around the house if I'm just out for fun, so I set that to repeat and somehow managed to shove my mp3 player in my waist belt that was full of gels and salt tabs (it was going to be humid, and I sweat a lot) and walked up to the starting line. Hopefully, I wouldn't regret this last minute major change!
The course was two 13.1 mile loops. There was something like 6-700 half marathoners, so there would be a bunch of people around during the first loop, but only 100+ marathoners. I think that number was closer to 100 than 200 though, because I registered the week before the marathon, and I was number 91. This made for a pretty lonely second loop, but I'll get to that in a second.
The race started, and it didn't take long for me to remember that I had run another marathon 3 weeks before. My legs felt heavy and tired too early. My foot, though, felt surprisingly good. I, of course, had set a time goal for myself (I'm not capable of not doing that), but at mile 8 or 9 I already started slowing down and by the time I came through the halfway mark at the start/finish, I was definitely not on pace anymore. Somewhere around 8 or 9 when I really started questioning my time, my mind started trying to go to that negative place where it spent most of Austin. It was then I remembered something a friend had commented to me before heading down to Beaumont: 'focus on the process not the outcome and you'll be happy with the results', and I decided then and there to not let myself beat myself up about this. I was not going to give up, and even more, I was going to enjoy this race regardless of what the clock said at the end. And that is what I did.
As I mentioned before, the second loop was pretty lonely, especially in the downtown section. The course started at Lamar University then you ran down a 6-lane highway that had been completely shut down for a couple miles to downtown. There were a lot of turns once in downtown, and the second time through, there were several occasions where I could see no one in front or behind and there was not a single spectator anywhere to be seen - a ghost town. Much different from Austin. But I didn't let it bother me. I took in the sights of downtown Beaumont. There are some charming historical buildings, a cute main street and the world's third largest fire hydrant that is painted like a Dalmatian and is apparently functional. The highlight, though, of this second run through downtown had to be these two women, one elderly, sitting on a park bench in the middle of a pretty lonely stretch. The older woman started clapping and smiling and cheering and that one moment was my motivation for the next mile (and at this point it's a one-mile-at-a-time venture). I wish I could find her and thank her for that.
World's 3rd largest fire hydrant
The two-mile stretch back to the university (and the finish line!) on that 6-lane highway was the biggest challenge. The winds were fierce, and you were running straight into a headwind, not to mention that it was inclined just enough to notice the whole way back. It was brutal (can't imagine what it might have been like with a stroller, though). But still, even here I kept my head happy. I also never walked between water stops, which was another goal I had made for myself after the race started.
I should take a moment here to recognize the Gusher marathon itself. I have to say, I wasn't expecting much being that it was such a small marathon in a small town way out in east Texas, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The course markings were great, and the water stations had so much more than water. The orange slices were abundant and oh so appreciated.
Also, I was sooo grateful for the music. This race definitely changed my opinion of running with music. I don't know that I'll use it in every road race (definitely not in trail races), but I definitely see the benefit of it in certain situations. The lonely downtown, the long highway stretch, the ever-present knowledge that something's going on with my foot.....all of these might have knocked me down even with my new found mental strength if not for the upbeat music playing throughout the race. There were a couple times where the music shut off due to a button being pushed or the mp3 player getting jostled, and it really worried me - 'how will I finish without my music!' Of the songs that kept me going, Alicia Keys's 'Girl on Fire', Eminem's 'Till I Collapse' and Fun's 'Carry On' were some of the best and most motivating.
At about mile 25, my foot started hurting. I'm guessing it hurt the whole time, but adrenalin and my mind's self-defense system pushed all that out of my mind in order to help me get to the finish (okay, I'll admit I felt it before here - the whole race really, but this is where it started hurting enough for me to have to really acknowledge it). By mile 25, though, I was close enough that those systems had decided they'd done their job and could shut off. I was so close, though, so I just kept moving forward. I once read something someone had written about ultramarathons, describing the process of running one as 'relentless forward motion'. This phrase spent a good bit of time in my head as a mantra during this race to help keep me from stopping and walking, and it came back during those last 1.2 miles and helped carry me to the finish.
I finally rounded the corner to the finish line and attempted to pick up speed to 'sprint' it in, though, I could feel I didn't really move any faster. My legs were just dead. I crossed the line 11 minutes slower than Austin. My slowest marathon ever, but I crossed with a smile, because I never gave up. I never gave in to the negative feelings and disappointment of not running as fast as I thought I should. I had tried to encourage others along the way that I saw had reached that point that I had gotten to in Austin. I offered one guy a salt tab who obviously was cramping up around mile 19. I went back-and-forth with another guy for a couple miles the second time through downtown who seemed, to me, to be having a difficult time dealing with the realization that he was not going to achieve his time goal (based on the few words we exchanged) and tried to help him think positive thoughts. I cheered on the marathoners who were still heading out toward downtown on that long highway stretch as I was coming back in. In the last mile, there was a guy who started walking, and I talked to him and got him to start running again and run it in as I came up on him. All of these pep talks to those people were also pep talks to myself. I would tell them, 'We've got this. Let's do it.' In the last 6 miles, I didn't get passed by anyone, but I did pass a few others. This was a stark contrast to Austin where it seemed everyone in the world passed me by in those last several miles.
So, I ran my slowest marathon ever. But I ran it three weeks after running another marathon, and I ran it on a foot that quite honestly, shouldn't even have been doing a 5k and still managed to be only a few minutes off my best time, but more importantly, I did what that friend advised me to do. I focused on the process not the outcome, and he was right. I am satisfied with the results. If nothing else, I learned how to run a marathon in the mental sense. I'm not going to lie and say I'm satisfied with my time, but I learned how to talk myself out of negative thoughts, to believe that I can keep going even when my mind and body are saying otherwise and how to value the process regardless of the outcome, so in that sense, I think of this race as a win.
Oh yeah, and remember my crazy friend who ran with his daughter in a stroller? Yeah, he won the whole thing. Pretty amazing in its own right, then add in the wind, the humidity, the other marathon three weeks before, that two mile stretch that was uphill (that we had to do twice)....yeah, pretty awesome. And what of our other friends? Well, one won her age group in the marathon and the other got fourth in his age group in the half. Oh, and because it was a small race, I somehow managed to finish 2nd in my age group and 7th female overall.
With my slowest time ever, pulled out a 2nd place AG award
Unfortunately, the ache in my foot turned out to be a possible stress fracture instead of soft-tissue damage. I have been told no running for 4 weeks (3 weeks now as I write this). This was a pretty difficult blow to take, but I am trying to see the positive side in it, which is that I am learning how to swim for exercise, something I've been wanting to do anyway, and taking the extra time to do other things I've been wanting to try but haven't had time for between runs like yoga and now water running too. Hopefully this forced break will give me time to cross-train and strengthen and come back even stronger so that I can take this new mindset and pair it to some serious training and see what I can do with the two. Once I come back, I'll be training for a three-day, 60-mile total trail stage race in Chattanooga in June. That will be my main focus. But I'm not done with marathons yet. I will get that BQ someday. Once I decide I am going to do something, I will do it. I don't know how long it will take, how many marathons I'll have to run, which age bracket I'll be in at that time, but I am going to do it.
My new AquaJogger belt for water running.
So, the Gusher was a lesson and test in tenacity and perseverance, and I feel that I passed. I'm proud of myself for keeping a good mental attitude and fighting through to the finish. I'm proud of my friends for trying again after Austin and for the things they achieved in each of their respective races. And I'm looking forward to getting back to running in a few weeks. For now, though, I am embracing the challenge of tackling a new sport (swimming) and of finding other, creative ways to get stronger and stay in shape, and as I like to say, I love a good challenge.
