I Did It! Sort of.

The shell necklace is actually what we were given as our Finisher's Medal, which was pretty cool.  As you'll probably gather when you keep reading, this picture was actually taken a couple of days after the marathon.  There weren't a whole lot of smiley faces happening on Race Day.

So, last Sunday was the 2012 Honolulu Marathon.  I’m just going to start out by saying it didn’t go at all the way I had wanted it to and I’m glad that it’s over.  20 out of 26.2 miles came with a lot of tears and anger and depression, and even though I did finish, I’m still not quite proud of myself.

I’m a terrible blogger and didn’t post about it, but in November I sprained the Medial Collateral Ligament on my left knee.  While my doctor told me that I could probably still run the marathon, what this meant was I pretty much missed my last month of training to give myself time to heal.  During my earlier training I had gotten up to 16 miles, and I thought that this combined with race-day adrenaline would carry me through.  However, looking back I don’t think I was really prepared.

Everything started out pretty much okay.  I was definitely going slower than I normally would have, but I was trying to be conscious of my knees.  Things went pretty smoothly this way right up until mile 6, when I got an inexplicable pain in my right hip.  This got steadily worse until I could only run for about 30 seconds at a time before the pain was too much and I had to stop and walk.

There isn’t really a word for how disappointed I felt when I realized that the rest of the marathon wasn’t going to go the way I had hoped.  Even though I had told pretty much anyone who would listen that I knew I was going to be slower this time around, and that I was going to take it easy, and walk instead of run if my knees started hurting, I didn’t actually believe that I would really have to do these things.  It was a huge letdown when I finally had to force myself to accept that I was going to walk the majority of the race.  From mile 6 to mile 16 I did still try to run, mostly by telling myself that the pain didn’t matter and that I could make it.  Eventually, however, the pain was too much and I walked the last 10 miles.

I had approached Marathon Day with the mindset that as long as my knees were better I would be okay to run.  On Sunday morning my knees WERE better, but I still ended up not being able to run the course, and I just felt like this was incredibly unfair.  The hip pain was completely new; I had never had any problems with that joint during my training, so I couldn’t understand why it was happening.  I felt like I was weak, and that my body had betrayed me.

At this point my hip hurt while I was walking as well, and muscle soreness had started to set into my legs.  Every step was a struggle, but there was nothing I could do except keep going.  Even then, I didn’t feel like I had a right to my soreness, because I was just walking.  There were so many times that I wanted to give up, and I was so angry with myself for not being able to complete the race the way that I had wanted to.  I didn’t feel like I deserved my Finisher’s medal, or the Taco Bell I had planned to eat that evening.  I’m the kind of person who doesn’t really like to do things that they can’t do well, and I felt like I had failed.  I told myself multiple times that deciding to do this marathon was a TERRIBLE idea and that I was NEVER going to do it again!

Almost everyone I’ve spoken to since has told me that finishing at all is a big accomplishment and something I should be proud of.  During the race, I overheard another racer say, “There are only three things to keep in mind: 1) Finish. 2) Don’t get hurt. 3) Don’t be last.  If you do those three things, you’ve won.”  This makes sense and I guess it’s true, but it’s definitely taken me a couple of days to come around to it.  I feel like I put in a lot of work to make sure I’d be ready for race day, and I didn’t really get anything back.  I got the pain but none of the glory.  Even though I finished, the way I see it I didn’t have much of a choice.  My car was parked at the finish line, and if I wanted to go home (and I SO wanted to just go home) I had to get there.

I am working on changing my mindset, though.  I think that someday I will be able to look at this experience and see something good in it – probably something real cheesy about pushing forward when all you want to do is collapse, or how you can get through anything if you just take it one step at a time, or something like that.  In hindsight, I probably could very well have gone up to one of the first aid tents, told the medical services people that my leg hurt too much to go on, and had them drive me to the finish line.  In all honesty, I did think about doing this once or twice.  But I didn’t do it, and I suppose that says something, right?

At the Marathon Expo the day before the race, I got this necklace:

The pendant is made by a company called I Declare! in case anyone is interested.

I had bought it to kind of be a symbol of strength to help me get through the marathon.  When I got home on Sunday afternoon, I took it off immediately and put it away.  On Monday morning, though, I put it back on and I’ve continued to wear it so far.  Even though Race Day didn’t turn out the way I had wanted, I’m trying not to be so hard on myself about it.  I guess the charm can still symbolize strength, just a different kind than I had originally meant.