The first con was that we had to change our clocks ahead one hour, which makes going to bed early and getting enough sleep a difficult task. The pro to the clocks being ahead one hour is that it actually started a little earlier in the morning, and we got an extra hour in cooler weather. But the sun did eventually come and out and was baking us at 80 degrees Fahrenheit. And the whole season we trained the weather was in the 50s to 60s. So, this made it difficult to be on top of your game.
I got maybe 3 hours of deep sleep, the rest of the night I tossed and turned until 3am (which felt like 2am). My running friend and I slept at my best friend's house and her husband got up early to drive us to the start. We left around 4 am (near LAX) and arrived around 5am. It actually wasn't that bad of a wait time getting into the parking lot and the facilities at Dodger's Stadium were nice. We had clean bathrooms, the stadium seating was warmer than waiting outside by the start line. And they played the course map on the jumbo tron, which I liked quite a bit. It showed little pop ups of the iconic sites along the route as well as the elevation at each mile.
I met up with a couple other running friends, they did the run/ walk interval 20 mile training with me, after I sent off my other friend to her coral with wishes of good luck. (She runs faster than me and she had assigned placement because she had ran a marathon before and they put you in "seeded" corrals according to expected pace.) So I met up with these other ladies and their friends. We all started together and I decided to stay with two of them and do 6 min run/ 1 min walk intervals together. They did such a good job of helping me through my first 20 that I wanted to stick with them for moral support. Its a bit more fun to run with people, even if we didn't stay with each other the whole time it was nice to have company for as long as we could hang together. We all agreed that if anyone had to stop due to any issues we wouldn't hold the others back if they felt strong enough to charge ahead.
Mile after mile passed and one gal kept saying, "Mile (fill in blank) already?" We were taking it easy, we knew the heat was going to be a killer and we didn't want to push ourselves too hard and have nothing to give in the end. Mile 7 I had to take my first potty break, but it was a good time to stretch, turn on my music, and check text messages/ text my husband. I thought he would like to know I was okay.
The second MAJOR con was that there was absolutely NO Gatorade left for people at a slower pace, like myself. They ran out of Gatorade and at every stop I searched for some and didn't find any. I lost my two running friends at mile 12, when I bee lined across the street to an area that looked like they had Gatorade set out. But when I got there it was still just water. Water is good for hydration, but you lose electrolytes when you sweat, and in the grueling heat we were sweating even more than usual. We did thank the Lord for some cloud coverage and a cool breeze that we were able to enjoy until mile 10. But by this point I knew I was going to need something very soon, or start paying the price.
My friends had brought powder packets and a water bottle and they were pouring those into the bottle and having the volunteers fill them up when they went through the water stations. Then they would take a couple cups of water and drink those and pour one on their head. I had decided not to carry a water bottle because I thought I was being paranoid and would start to be annoyed by carrying it around for the whole race. When I ran half marathons I never needed to carry water, I found the stations located at each mile were sufficient to supply my hydration needs. But those gals were smart, I should have done what they did. But I'm a newbie to this marathon business, I didn't know any better. Anyways... as I said, I lost track of them at mile 12 searching for some Gatorade and although I scanned around for them for a bit I decided to just keep moving forward when I couldn't spot them. I figured either they passed me and I would catch up or they were behind me and they might be able to find me again.
As I resigned the the possibility that the rest of the race was going to be just me and my iShuffle a song came on, my theme song! "Oceans!" At this point I just smiled and said, "Okay God, you promised to help me get through this. I don't have any Gatorade and I don't know how long my legs are going to hold up, but I know you will help me." One of the verses I had read, when I had to take a break from running to heal my knee, said "Do not fear, I will help you." That's in Isaiah 41:13. Then I started to thank the Lord for all my supporters that donated money for Melanoma Research, and then I remembered my friend's specific prayer request, she had asked me to pray for her during my time with the Lord while I was running the marathon. I gladly said yes, she is always praying for me! God bless her precious heart. At that moment her song started to play on my iShuffle. Every time "Speak Life" by Toby Mac played on the radio I would think of her and pray for her. I just thought, Wow... God is so good. What good timing! I didn't play every song on my iShuffle that day, you see. I had skipped a few songs that were too slow or didn't have the beat I wanted at the moment. I had over 5 hours of music on my play list and I hadn't started playing it until mile 7, so I had quite a bit of songs that I knew I wouldn't even hear... so skipping a few here and there was no big deal. So the timing was all a God thing, people. He so often uses music to speak to me, it always blows me away when He does that.
By mile 14 one of the ladies caught up with me during my walk break. She ran up to me and said, "You aren't suppose to be walking right now!" haha... I said, "According to my watch it is!" jokingly. (I was going off her watch's pacing earlier, and when I lost her I started the interval sequence on my watch, which was out of sync.) I was able to sync up my watch with hers (she was all impressed that I knew how to do that, since I was borrowing this watch from another running buddy... lol). And she then told me if I could hang in there until mile 15 or so that she had some friends on the sidelines waiting for her and they had water bottles and stuff to put in the water. When we found them they hurried to provide me with everything I needed! They gave me nuun tablets, put a whole bunch in a ziploc baggie for me, and poured some zipp fizz into my water to give me some nourishment. Then plopped a orange in my hand as I ran off to catch up with my friend who said she was going to start up again. With a water bottle under my arm pit, peeling the meat out of the orange, and chucking the peal to the side, and trying to figure out a spot to shove my treasured new nunn tablets I started running. It was kind of funny. But I was blessed. The Lord provided.
My whole body was starting to cramp up as we passed mile 17. My toes were curling under, like I had a charlie horse in both feet, and a band across my waist, from the left side to my right, was cramping. And I had side stitches. By calves were also starting to feel tight and I knew that "the wall" was coming my way. I kept breaking the tablets and plopping them into my treasured new water bottle, and had it refilled at every station, but it was taking a while for the electrolytes and nutrients to kick in. I almost felt sick to my stomach from having so much pumped into me at this point, but I was desperate to refuel my body before it just failed on me and refused to move.
I told my friend at mile 19, during our walk break, that I wouldn't be able to run at the next interval start time. I told her I was going to head for the bathrooms and let her know she was free to finish her race without me. I was going to be okay. She was still doing well, going strong and steady. So she went on ahead. I took a moment to check in with my husband again. Had a good chuckle over a auto-correct message that looked like this: "Just passed mile 19 everything is cramping up the rent out of gero some eggs finally gave me something so hopefully that'll help." I know the "gero some eggs" was suppose to be Gatorade, the rest I have no idea. LOL. I texted JD after I read what I had sent. "That was supposed to say Gatorade... lol" He texted back, "We are laughing. Almost done. We are excited to see you cross." It made for a good laugh in a very tough moment. I warned him I was just walking at that point, and I would try to pick it back up when I could.
I just chugged and chugged those Nuun tablets. Mile after mile, take a water cup, drink it, drink another one, pour a cup on my head, refill water bottle with the Nuun tablet inside. Repeat. Every pretzel and orange and banana offered by those AWESOME strangers and marathon supporters on the sidelines I took. I ate, I drank, and then.... I peed. And I peed. And I peed.... you get the gist. LOL. I literally had to stop at every porto-potty every mile. It was annoying, but it meant I was getting re-hydrated.
The farthest I had gone was 20 miles in practice. And when I passed mile 21 I just got this rush of energy back. I felt amazing. Adrenaline, endorphins, runners high... it all happened. I started to pickup up my feet and run. I turned up the volume on my iShuffle and worshipped God and offered my legs up to Him. I knew they were His, they were no longer mine. He was going to get me to that finish line. He provided me all the nutrients, electrolytes, and encouragement I needed to get my engine revving again. Every high five from a stranger on the sideline, every perfectly placed bite of food, it was all God's provision.
I checked my fancy borrowed Garmin watch (hee) and checked out my new running pace. 10 min per mile! It stayed somewhere between there and 10:30 the whole time. I would still stop at every stinking porto-potty at every mile, LOL, but when I started running again I was doing my best. I was flying... soaring! (Just like that verse in Isaiah, "They will soar on wings of eagles") I felt amazing! I passed mile 25 and I couldn't wait to turn that corner onto Ocean Blvd and text JD that I was almost to the finish line.
As I turned onto Oceans Blvd I had a tough time getting a message through using my voice activated mode, so I had to stop running for a second. I found a shady spot under a tree and texted two words. "Oceann" "npw" and kept going. I scanned the side lines, as I got closer, for the familiar faces of my friends and my husband. Soon enough there they were. They started cheering loudly, I started pumping my fist in the air, and then the people around them saw me and they started cheering loudly for me! It was amazing! I saw my husband's proud smiling face, as he held up his phone to film my first time ever finishing a full marathon. It was priceless. I looked ahead and saw the finish line and I dug even deeper and ran as hard as I could until I crossed it. Finished just under 6 hours, perfect. It was just perfect.
The part where my husband tried to find me at the "family reunion area" was the final con. It was difficult for him to navigate around road closures and figure out where I was. But it was over. And he was there. And I was triumphant. God provided, I felt amazing. It was a good day. Praise God!
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