Med CIty Re-cap

I decided last Wednesday to go ahead and take a gamble at trying to complete the Med City Marathon. My thinking was  that on Wednesday I was able to run 6 miles on a bike path and I was able to manage the foot pain and had minimal achilles pain so why not go for a marathon. For that run, I walked every mile for 2 minutes and I was able to maintain 12 minute pace. More importantly, the walk breaks seemed to keep the calves and foot manageable.

So I signed up and told no one I was doing it. I chose not to tell anyone as I was trying to mentally get myself into the mode of doing it for me. Going into it, I wasn't sure that I could finish and the thought of another DNF wasn't something I wanted to deal with. I also knew that Grandmas is coming up and that if I am to have a chance at it, this run could be pretty important.

So Sunday morning got started with my alarm not going off but thankfully I still woke up in just enough time to get out the door and head to Rochester. It did add some stress I didn't need. For Med City they bus you to the start line in Byron about 10 miles away. I went into it pretty relaxed with an attitude to take what the day gave me and to work on getting in at least 20 miles. That was my minimum distance to have a chance at Grandmas. I wore my marathon maniacs shirt which led to my syncing up with many of my fellow maniacs.

All went well until I went down a steep downhill around mile 8 or 9 which had me hobbling from achilles pain. Since it was the last really significant downhill I told myself to work through it after the hill which I was able to do. It turned out that that was the last of the achilles pain, which pleased me to no end. The race proceeded rather uneventful except we ran into a wind for a large part of the race and then the rain started which had me thinking "I left my arm sleeves in the car, why???". I slowed during the 2nd half of the race which was planned as I expected more foot pain which happened. The pain increased from mile 15 until the end. Miles 20 to 26 were the hardest and slowest which made sense based on my training and health. At mile 25 I about had to sit down and let it calm down. Instead I tied my shoe as tight as I could and proceeded to finish out the race. As to shoes, I wore my Brooks Pure Cadences and they worked well.

The pain in the foot post marathon has been manageable, struggled on Sunday, ran short on Monday and ran normally last night but only 3 miles each night.

What did I learn, I have to get the extra weight off, the pictures (and they took a lot of them) showed an old fat guy, no wonder I am slow.

This was a fun race, with very enthusiastic volunteers, a fun course with lots of turns, fairly easy all things considered. My thanks to the race director and his volunteers. Hope to see you all next year.