Afterglow

Marathon Afterglow

It’s now Tuesday (03/21/2006) and I’m still elated after this year’s marathon. My experience was just absolutely the greatest. First things first. My youngest sister was apparently cheering me on and I never saw her. Well I thought I saw her a total of three times during the race. This is why I really didn’t pay close attention cause I figured it was someone in the crowd calling out my bib name. Bummer. Sorry sis for not noticing you, but it makes me feel really good that you were there. Now I remember hearing my name being called out at the beginning of the race and see it for what it is. Love you!

I had an extremely large amount of fun. How much fun do you say? How much fun can you have running/walking/crawling for 26.2 miles? After all I experienced a very serious cramp at around mile 12. It really hurt. Here is the thing, I got attention right away. That seems to be an underlying theme in all of this :-) The good news is that I recovered quickly (I wanted to recover quickly). I got back on the saddle and caught this wonderful source of inspiration again. It affected my heart rate in a positive way and made me go on. Twice I had to play catch up but it was so worth it.

There were a few moments of doubt but when trying to reach a goal, power and swiftness come out of nowhere (Powerbars help too, I specially like the peanut butter kind). I ran up to the mile 20 marker, passed that and kept running. I know I was not going that fast (although my GPS unit says I hit 10.3 miles per hour and my heart monitor hit 174), other folks were passing me but when you’re a turtle or a penguin speed is relative. Half way to mile 21 that great feeling came over me again. Boy was I feeling good at that moment, even though my left hamstring was hurting like crazy! I’m so elated that as of today (March 21, 2006), I’ve already signed up for next year’s marathon. Ready to go! Yeah baby! There was singing and dancing and moving to the grove, play that funky music…..oh sorry I was somewhere else for a minute there.

Back to the marathon. So can one have fun doing all this? Yes! I guess it all depends on whether you’re alone and lonely or not. Can you be alone with 25,000 people around you. Yes, lonely it can be, loneliness can lead to bitterness, bitterness leads disappointment, disappointment leads to the dark side :-(, making you very unhappy about your performance. I was neither alone, nor lonely. And my head still spinning as I write this. Must tell the others….

Onlookers smiled, I smiled back, they could see the glow in my eyes and the band played on. Ok, enough of the craziness.

One thing I would like to do is offer my condolences to those who lost their loved ones in the course of the marathon. I’m no stranger to this (see March 5th posting).

More to come….