My First Marathon
If your goals aren’t hard to reach, they aren’t good enough goals. That’s what I told myself after I failed to run as fast as I wanted to in my first-ever marathon. I went in prepared and confident, with a hefty goal of 3:45 in mind. I had trained hard for it, running multiple 20-mile training runs. When I reached the last 4 miles of the race, my body started to fail me. I cramped - HARD - in my left foot. I had to stop to relieve the cramp, then keep running. Then both feet cramped. I cried out. This is where the growth happened. It wasn’t in the first 13 miles of bliss where I felt like I was floating through the race. It was when my body was screaming at me to stop that it had had enough. But my mind was screaming “GO!”
There are two types of pain - physical and emotional. You can only control one. Back when I was racing cross country in high school, I would let the emotional pain win. The physical pain - something you cannot control - would appear, and then the emotional pain followed shortly behind. We all know the emotional pain is the “second dart.” It’s the thoughts of “ugh, why does this hurt so bad, why can’t I go faster, why is this happening to me?” Some breathing issues I used to have made it hard for me to go faster, so I couldn't run as fast as I wanted to. When I would finish my 3-mile race, I would succumb to the emotional pain and start crying, leaving me emotionally exhausted.
During my first marathon last Sunday in Dunedin, New Zealand, I raced against 20mph headwinds, rolling hills and no pacers to follow. This was the easy part. When my body started to fail, after being pushed to the limit - THAT is when the challenge began.
I felt the “first dart” - the physical pain shooting through my foot as I cramped SO hard. I cried out, and the emotional thoughts started whirling - “I have been keeping such good time, what if I can’t reach my goal?” I felt annoyed - I had been running for 3.5 hours straight without stopping, and now my body has forced me to stop. All these emotions sat heavily in my throat, and I was on the brink of tears. But then, something changed. I thought to myself, feeling that all of this is only going to make it harder to finish. So I sucked it up. I swallowed my tears, and I channelled my inner shark. Shark?? Yes. Sharks can only experience physical pain, not emotional pain. They react physically without emotions, making the experience a whole show.
After relieving the cramp, I began running again. I cramped about 7 more times - each time, yes, I cried out - but no, I did not feel sad or sorry for myself. I took in the facts of what was happening and pushed through to the finish line, making it in under 4 hours.
A marathon is a unique race in that you are truly only competing with yourself. You do not know who started with you and thus who is ahead of you or behind you. Your battle is with the thoughts in your head - and believe me, there is plenty of time to think during the 4-hour run. There are no winners and losers. It’s only you against yourself. Such is life.
It took me until the age of 29 to understand what I was missing during those high school cross-country races. I have worked hard to develop my mental fortitude over the years. Next time I feel the emotional pain circling, I will think of my shark friends and how that is not even a reality for them in an attempt to control my own.
