Tag Archives: Exercise

Thankfully, the worst injury I’ve ever suffered was breaking my collar bone during my senior year in high school. At this point, recovering from the marathon is running a close second in life-disruption. My feet are in an ice bath as I type.

Not being able to walk normally has been an amazing inconvenience. My legs are actually feeling fine, but my feet have protested the 26.2 miles I put them through on Sunday. My tendons have never been tested like that, and they have been letting me know. It is odd, and sometimes painful, to feel how my foot works as I walk. It is also frustrating to be so inefficient. Even when I walk without pain, it is in slow motion. I’m afraid to push too hard because I don’t want to cause a permanent issue.

Overall, I’m grateful that I was able to complete the marathon, and no, I never want to do it again. I also have a new awareness of how much I take my generally healthy body for granted. I’m looking forward to resuming a regular exercise routine and plan to continue making my health a priority. Getting done with the 9 to 5, but not being able to enjoy it due to health issues, just isn’t going to work for me.

Because everyone always wants to know, I finished in 5:29:02.

It was a beautiful day for a marathon. The sunrise was perfect and happened just before I made it to the start.

I weaved through hundreds of walkers and runners to start. There always seems to be a bottleneck at the beginning of a race (the handful I have ever done seems like a representative sample).

I completed the first 10k in 1:06:34 and the half marathon (13.1 miles) in 2:25:15. This was only about ten minutes slower than my half-marathon pace from 5 years ago. The year I was 30, I completed two half marathons - and I hadn’t jogged since. Mr. PFL met me less than a half mile from this checkpoint. It was really good to see him. I have to admit to a moment of doubt and a lot of emotion when the half marathoners turned off the course. The amount of people on the course thinned out considerably making it much easier to navigate.

By the time I passed the 16.3 mile checkpoint after 3:07:03, I started looking for a bathroom. I was getting into rarely completed mileage by this point. I found a restroom before mile 18.

I could tell I was doing fairly well, and really made a push to finish 20 miles in less than 4 hours. Besides finishing, this was my main goal. I managed to jog more than two straight miles to make it happen. I’d never gone more than 19 miles before. I made it to the 20 mile mark at 3:57:56. I walked for a while. I texted Mr. PFL to make sure he knew I was slowing down. Then I started jogging again to see my friend at the Mile 22 water station; I kept jogging until I saw her. She promised me there was beer at the end and I was getting close.

As you can tell from these splits, that last 6.2 miles took me about 1 hour and 31 minutes. I really did jog most of it, including the last entire mile after I gave Mr. PFL my Jimmy John’s order. I had another bathroom break around Mile 23. In the moment, I never would have guessed it was taking me so long.

Then I finished.

I completed my first 2 mile training jog on June 16, 2014. My records indicate it took 27 minutes. Yikes. I completed my last 2 mile training jog on October 17, 2014 in 20:32. And today, I completed a marathon.

Here’s to hoping I don’t get any stupid ideas for the year I am forty!