How I Survived My 1st Marathon
From the moment I signed up for my 1st marathon in October 2021, I felt a fire lit inside of me for what felt like the first time in my life. I switched from 4-5 mile runs around the neighborhood to running the 9 mile loop around White Rock Lake about twice a week. I envisioned myself crossing the finish line - a glorious moment in which I’d be bombarded with cheers and applause. These 9 mile runs slowly gave me a reality check - I wasn’t ready. I’d have to run 26.2 miles in just a matter of weeks. “No problem. I’ll just increase my training and my mileage.” I thought to myself. And so I did.
With just a month to go before my 1st marathon, I felt a sharp pain in both kneecaps that kept me from training any further. It could’ve been a mix of the increased intensity of my training as well as my nonexistent recovery schedule, coupled with my diet of chips & salsa that did me in - I’ll never know. But it was discouraging, and I felt like pulling out of the race would be my next best move. There are a few reasons I chose not to:
I had already told anyone with a pulse that I was running a marathon. I couldn’t shut up about it (sorry to everyone at work, friends, and family.)
I couldn’t wait until the 51st BMW Dallas Marathon. The 50th sounded way cooler and it was the first one since the pandemic.
I paid for an entry and there are no refunds.
There’s very few better motivators for me than a hit to my ego and the thought of being socially shamed, however irrational that may seem. Perhaps more irrational was my preparation the night before the actual marathon.
I slept for 4 hours the night before the race - a result of watching a UFC event at my cousins home. We ate pizza and played poker until I left around 12:30am. The real fight was in my brain - I went to bed off of two highs, one from the adrenaline of watching an underdog in Pena upset Nunes, and the second from the anticipation of what was to come the next morning. The sharp pain in my knees had been gone for about a week up to this point, and soon I would be putting my knees and my cardio to the test. I decided that if either of them failed me, I’d just walk.
It was a cold, frigid morning with the temperature somewhere in the 40s - perfect for a run. The light from the morning sun shined between the window blinds in my living room, softly illuminating the wooden floor. I was running late, and after stretching for about 15 minutes I was off to my first race of the day - trying to make it to the event in time. I parked my car somewhere in Deep Ellum and ran to the corrals where runners were lining up. Corral B had just been given the green light as I was making my way through the packed crowd of runners and spectators. After a few moments of walking and looking at every race bib, I found my corral, D. I felt awkward with the amount of stuff I was carrying in my hands - a plastic baggie with my wallet, car keys, and phone, and a GoPro plus a mounting stick in my other hand. The GoPro wasn’t connected to the stick because I had forgotten the screw in my car. It was too late to go back, so I put the stick in the plastic baggie and carried the GoPro in my free hand. I cannot stress enough how ill prepared I was from the lack of sleep, to running late, to carrying a bunch of junk in my hand, it was comical. I had broken every single rule, including the rule in which you never run in clothing you’ve never tried running in before. I bought a Squid Game tracksuit from eBay a couple of months before and this was the perfect time to test it out.
As I made small talk with other runners waiting in the queue, the call came for my corral to line up. We packed the corral like cattle, waiting for a man with a bullhorn to give us the start signal. I was excited and ready to go when a blare from the horn told the runners to run, and I started with a light pace with my knees in mind. We ran past buildings and under highways as the initial cheers from spectators began to fade into the distance. I felt good - like I could keep my pace and I was gladly surprised I felt zero pain in my lower body. At such a steady, easy pace, I allowed my mind to wander and take in the scenery before being brought back by loud clangs and more cheers from small bands of supporters, there to cheer on their loved ones.
As I ran through a neighborhood with a steep incline, I began to breathe more through my mouth and I shifted my heavy bag from one hand to the other. I pretended like I was holding weights, and that this was a sort of workout. The initial adrenaline from the start of the race was beginning to wear off, and I started to feel a soreness in my left thigh. I remember running up more steep inclines past the neighborhood before it veered into White Rock Lake. By this time I began to slow down my pace, running lighter than I was before. I finally stopped running at mile 12, I just couldn’t keep it up with the soreness in my thigh. I began to feel my shoulders becoming sore too, perhaps from the back-and-forth motion I was maintaining in my gait, or the junk I was carrying. I felt I was forced to finally walk from sheer exhaustion. I looked over my shoulder and saw a few ducks floating lazily in the water and thought about how stupid we must look to them. Humans are perhaps the only animals that choose to do painful things that can kill them, like marathons. Even stupider is doing painful things while being unprepared. I felt stupid just running. I couldn’t help but ask myself, why was I even doing this?
My sister called me somewhere along mile 14 and told me that my family would be waiting for me up ahead. “You can’t miss me,” I said, “I’m wearing a Squid Game tracksuit.” I had told my family a month before that I would be running a marathon, and that it’d be cool if they came out for a little while and supported me. I felt a bit guilty for asking because this was a one man show - it’s not like they’re going to have fun waiting 6 hours for me to finish an entire marathon. I had them come out to White Rock Lake instead which was somewhat a halfway marker. As I was alternating between running and walking, I thought about my decision to run a marathon. I wanted to challenge myself and prove to myself that I could do it. I also felt a sense of adventure and thrill for the challenge of running a marathon, which sounds fun because running is fun. My runners high comes to me in the moments when I think I’m about to stop but I don’t. It comes to me when I doubt myself and somehow pull out a second wind that carries me further.. It comes to me when I’ve given it my all. In my greatest moments. I figure that this is how I wish to live and die. To have been satisfied in giving it my all despite my own perceived limitations.
But this was far from my greatest moments, and far from my favorite runs. The soles of my feet were hurting, my thighs had pain in places I never felt before, and my shoulders were sore. I managed ti to give myself jogging spurts before I resorted back to walking. I had my head down when I was blindsided by my family around Mile 17. Mom, dad, and my sisters smiled at me as they greeted me. I brushed off the defeat in my walk and greeted them back. I told them I had a few hours left and we took photos before I was back in the race. We said goodbye as I began to run off, hoping that they wouldn’t see the pain I was in. A burst of energy flowed through my body and my motivation was renewed. I underestimated how much seeing my loved ones would inspire me. At this moment, pain didn’t even matter. As long as they didn’t see it, I didn’t feel it. I carried on past White Rock Lake until the trail turned back into the city streets.
I had no clue how much further I went or how much further I had to go, only that I had to walk again. I saw an older gentleman in a red tracksuit a quarter of a mile ahead of me and I sped up my walk to catch up to him. We talked briefly and I complimented his tracksuit. How funny it must’ve been for onlookers to see two people in the same outfit. They must’ve thought we knew each other or coordinated it. But as we walked past restaurants and buildings towards downtown, he told me he was going to run off and he did. He must’ve been 50 years my senior, and he looked like he was going to finish strong. I alternated between running and walking, thinking I could catch up to him but I never did. During my walk I met a man who was running the ultra distance, and a woman who told me that this was her 15th marathon. I couldn’t even think of doing this again. I just wanted to finish and go grab a burger.
I passed more neighborhoods, city streets, and restaurants when I heard a runner in the distance saying we had only a few miles left. I was ready to rip off my tracksuit, which many people from the runners to the spectators recognized was from Squid Game. “Green light!” I’d hear for the 100th time. Like the players in the movie, I just wanted to survive this shit and go make a million bucks. A shower would’ve been nice, too. The daylight was dimming and it felt colder than it had before. It could’ve been the sweat that dried beneath my tracksuit though. Then I heard cheers and the sound of a voice coming from a megahorn of some sort up ahead and I knew I was close. I wanted to finish strong, and I picked up my pace and turned the corner to find the same area that runners started in. Ahead of me were people alongside the sides of the finish line, cheering for people that crossed it. I was almost there. I kept my pace and saw a man up ahead waving to both sides of the crowd. It was his 17th marathon or something crazy like that, and the megahorn was announcng his name. I was right behind him as he was still being celebrated, and I crossed the finish line in a non dramatic moment that had no fanfare and was only half the of the gloriful moment I envisioned it to be. I needed to run 15 more marathons for more praise and glory but there was no way in hell I’d run this thing again. There was no feeling of satisfaction for me, all that was left was me, a man with his legs splayed on the ground in front of him, empty of thoughts and feelings.
I got up and there were 2 ladies ahead of me that were handing out “Finisher” medals. One was put around my neck like I was an Olympian and I felt pretty good about it. There were also tables beyond this point that were handing out chocolate milks, bananas, finisher shirts, and Beyond Meat tacos. It was a lot to take in, but I stopped by every single table to grab each one of those items and made it to an area where runners and their families were sitting on stair steps. There was food trucks all around us, freaking geniuses. I would’ve eaten anything and everything at this point. I chose an empty area of the stairs and sat down with my well earned snacks. I savored each sip of chocolate milk and each bite of my banana - the best post workout snacks in the world. I rested on the steps for about 30 minutes listening to runners being cheered on past the finish line and decided it was time to go home.
It was getting dark and I was hoping find my car quickly, instead I walked around downtown Dallas and Deep Ellum for the next hour and a half trying to find my car with my medal around my neck and my green Squid Game tracksuit still on. I crossed a couple streets and highways and pressed the Lock button on my car keys to hear it in the distance. By this time, I had dry sweat underneath my tracksuit which was now keeping me warm, and snot dripping down my nose. I would’ve been shivering cold if it weren’t for the continuous walking. I got in my car, turned up the heat, and felt more joy than when I finished the marathon. The feeling was like being next to a warmly lit fireplace during Christmas. I stayed in my car for the next 15 minutes then called my mom to tell her I was done and she told me there was fried rice waiting for me at home - what a lovely message. I reversed out of the parking lot, went southbound on highway 75 and was on my way home.
I learned a lot about myself from running this marathon. I can’t be doing the wrong things and expect to be 100% ok. Meaning I can’t just eat pizza and sleep late the night before a marathon. And that I can’t rush the process - marathons are not a joke and it takes time to be fully prepared for your body to handle that sort of stress. I was limping at work for the next 3 weeks. I felt like I was my own worst enemy. I’m trying to find the balance between accepting challenges for the sake of the challenge versus accepting a challenge just to prove to a part of me that believes I’m not enough. I’m a work in progress and maybe one day I’ll find peace of mind in my life. Until then, you can find me at the 2022 BMW Dallas Marathon. I’m running the Ultra.
