The MS Runner

The Colfax Marathon is over, and I wonder if it will be around next year. There was only 488 marathoners that ran, which seems really lame. I’m not sure of the half marathon or the relay teams, but the total number of people was way down. Plus, they just don’t seem like they know what’s going on. At the Expo the day before, I went to pick up my bib and they had me listed in the half marathon. And they even ran out of shirts for the marathoners. How could you run out? There wasn’t even 500 of us.

I went into the day hoping to hit about 3:50, but the weather forecast made me adjust my prediction. I knew the 2nd half of the marathon was going to be hot, so I was hoping to at least get under the 4 hour mark. The heat is the worst enemy for people with MS. There are a lot of people that can’t even go outside in this type of weather if they are infected with this disease. I know that by the time I finished, it was in the 80’s and no clouds.

My first 18 miles weren’t too bad. I was hitting my times that I wanted to and still feeling okay. At about 2 1/2 miles, the run took us right in front of The Irish Snug Pub, and Frank, the owner, had a Guiness waiting for me! How many runners can say that they had a beer at any point during that run? Maybe I should of had one more towards the end. At mile 10, my quad was hurting, but not to the point where it was affecting my run. We hit the halfway point and turned around and headed east right into the sun. The good thing was that it was mostly downhill. I was feeling good and confident. But then at mile 18, I had to go to the bathroom, and yes, it was THE dreaded bathroom break. I lost 4 minutes at that point, and for some reason, I lost my energy. The run from there took us into downtown Denver and as you know, it’s always hotter downtown. There was also a couple of nasty “hills” to deal with which is always a challenge at any point of a race. I decided on one incline that I better save my energy so I walked up and that was even hard to do! With 3 miles to go, I knew that I wasn’t going to break 4 hours, so I think that at that instance, I kind of gave up. I still ran, but not as hard as I should have, because I figured, “what’s the point?” I look back now and I realize that you should never give up. Those last few miles of the marathon are very important to whatever level you are at, and if you can dig deep within yourself, that will just make you that much stronger for your next marathon or at whatever run that you do. Anyways, I finished at 4:09:56, which was a PR for me by 5 minutes. Here are my “stats”;

Overall - 177 out of 488

Age Division - 20 out of 50

Gender - 136 out of 307

10K - 55:11

15K - 1:23:04

25K - 2:16:48

30K - 2:47:41

From this point, I’m not sure what I want to do. I’ve talked about taking a break from marathon training and maybe just running some half marathons. Maybe when my brain gets un-fried, I’ll be able to think better and make a rational decision. We shall see.

Things are going too fast, spinning out of control, I can’t keep up with things, I suck.

Next thing you know is, I’m going to wake up and it’s the morning of my marathon.  What seemed like at one time a long, long way away, is now right on top of me, and it’s feeling heavy.  In one way, I’m glad it’s here and I can’t wait, but on the other hand, I want a couple more weeks to prepare.  But as one great philosopher said, “It is what it is”.  I will do the best that I can and I’m glad that I’m able to do it.  There are so many people out there with MS who need a wheelchair to get around, and here I am complaining about not being totally ready to run 26.2 miles.  What a dolt.

My youngest son Michael, announced  this week that he and his girlfriend Heather are engaged.  To each other no less.  I’m sure everyone who knows them are not surprised.  They have been shacking up now for 4 years and I guess that they decided to make it official.  No date has been set, but it will be sometime next summer.

My daughter FINALLY graduated college.  I think she breaks the record for the most number of years in college to get an associates degree.  I believe that all total she went to college for 6 years to get a 2 year degree.  Actually she was there for 4 years before she decided to can her one degree she was after.  I’m sure it will come in handy down the road sometime.  Yeah, that’s it.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Wings and Pistons are in the playoffs and are doing well.  The Tigers are up and down, but the good thing is that they are in a weak division.

This week will be more rest and less running as I wind down for the marathon.  I am getting a massage, which will be great, and I promise to go bed early.

Well after a whole week off from running, I ventured out on Saturday to test my leg and see how it would hold up.  I was quite surprised that after 5 miles, I felt great.  I was scheduled to do 20, and I was hoping for 10.  So instead of turning around at the 5 mile mark, I pushed onward.  At one point, between 7 and 8 miles, I came to this uphill portion which in itself isn’t bad, but then Mr. Wind decided to exhale and it seemed like I was walking for a mile.  In Colorado near the foothills, it can get extremely windy.  I think at that point, I would have been wise to turn around, but as I’ve said before, I’m not too smrt smart.  I turned around at 10 miles and headed back knowing that for most of the run, it would be downhill and the wind would be at my back.  My leg was feeling fine and I was determined to grind it out.  The only problem was that my body had other plans for me.  At about mile 14, my leg started to hurt, but not really too bad.  Then the unthinkable happened.  Yes, my friends and family, I got gas real bad!  Hey!  Someone has to admit it, and that someone is ME.  I stopped running for fear of having my nice $40 running shorts ruined.  How embarrassing.  I ended up walking the final 4 miles with my butt cheeks firmly clamped together.  After awhile, it all made sense.  My body was telling me that I needed to take it easy on my leg, but instead of making my leg hurt, my body gave me gas.

Today I feel great.  My leg is a little sore, but overall it feels fine.  I think that this week will be the deciding point to see if I’ll be running The Colfax Marathon on May 18.  After this week, I start to taper, so I need to get in some good quality workouts so I can gauge my fitness and see how my leg is holding up.  I’m confident that this will be a good week and that I will be back on track.  I just need to find the bathroom.

This weekend I am going to run in the Greenland Trail 50K.  Not that I would run 50K though.  There’s actually a 25K and an 8 Mile run.  I’m going to do the 25K which is about 16 miles, on trail, with altitude.  I was thinking of wearing a back pack full of rocks just for fun also.   I was going to run this as a race, but my left quad (I love saying quad.  Quad, quad, quad) has been hurting the last couple of days, so if it’s not better by Saturday, I’m going to take it a bit easy.  My marathon is 4 weeks away, so I don’t want to be doing anything stupid.  But then again, I’ve never been one to be real smrt  smart.

How do you like my baseball prediction so far?  2 ways you can look at it.  The Tigers suck and they are in last, or the Tigers are just getting warmed up and they are only 4 1/2 games back of first.  I’ll go with the latter.

I never did do my 6 word memoir.  I’m such a slacker and I apologize for my slackification.  I was thinking of this;                                                                                      

                                 “I used to be wild and crazy, now I’m just mild and lazy”

I think that’s slightly more than 6, so I’m still working on it.

I know weather is crazy all over the country, but this is ridiculous.  This past Tuesday in Denver, it was 85 degrees!  Then on Wednesday, it was 35 and snowing.  It’s global warming mixed in with the new ice age.

This is my first entry using my new computer. After 7 (?) years, I finally got a new one. The old one still worked and would do most of what I wanted, but I could tell it was getting to be like me. Takes awhile to get going and it may sputter out before it’s done. My CD/DVD drive wasn’t working which was bad because I couldn’t upload any songs from a CD to my MP3 player and most importantly, I couldn’t install the software that came with my Garmin that Diane bought me for Christmas. Well no more of that gigabyte breath! Now I am totally hooked up and there’s no excuse for me to not make the Olympic Marathon team. Really, how did they run marathons in the old days without knowing elevation gain, mile splits, and a feature that gets you back to the start? Now I can upload my run for the day and it will tell me everything, even how long my bathroom break was. I’m just now starting to figure out the features of this and once I have that mastered, I will still be the humble person that I always was.

I did 22 miles today and my calves are rebelling against me. I’ve pretty much just stayed on the couch most of the rest of the day, and I even give my calves a gentle massage. But they seem to be mad at me. When I get up to walk, they crunch up in a little ball and refuse to move. Don’t say anything, but I think that they are a bunch of babies. Nothing worse than baby calves! My run itself was nothing much to write about other than some of the awesome views that I saw. At one point, I’m running around this golf course that is right at the foothills. Very nice.

I didn’t get a chance to run as much this week because I had a chance to have a root canal done on Tuesday. No really. I don’t know if it was luck, or karma, or someone watching over me, but I got the pleasure of someone drilling my tooth, and extracting the nerve. I think that right now I should stop writing and go get a lotto ticket. It just doesn’t get any better.