Confessions of a reluctant runner. Part 6, Common sense be damned! Full speed ahead!

Well, I did it. After much delay I finally signed up for this year's Intact Canadian Derby Marathon. This was, and still is, a difficult decision for me. To begin with, last year's result was nothing short of a soul crushing personal defeat. Of the three marathons I have run, last year's was my worst. They had just changed the route from the year before so that it was now a flatter course and I thought for sure that I would be able to reach my goal of 4:00:00. I started out in good spirits and ready to go! As usual, my cardio was fine and I wasn't experiencing any laboured breathing or unusual fatigue. Then at the 21km mark (almost exactly) something happened; something terribly wrong was occurring in my calf muscle. Now I've had a history of calf muscles seizing. From swimming, to kickboxing, to simply reaching for something on my tip-toes. Nothing, however, was to prepare me for the hell I was about to trod through. As I passed the halfway mark I started to notice a twinge in my right calf; nothing earth shattering, but enough to cause one of my hallmark eye twitches. It wasn't long before that little twinge progressed into a familiar sharp spike of pain, soon accompanied by something that was even more troublesome than I had first projected from the first stirrings of pain. As far as my memory can serve, if I were to have a muscle spasm in my calf it would be on the right side. I'm not exactly sure why this has been the case, although I am aware that seem to have greater flexibility in my left leg. The year before I had to complete the last quarter of the marathon limping along as my right calf had seized after I had stopped to take a piss at one of the aid stations. That was one of the most painful, not to mention demoralizing tasks I've ever had to perform. On this particular day, on this particular run, as I was recalling the fiasco of the previous year, a new horror had presented itself to me.

As I was running, nay, skipping, clearly favouring my right leg I started to notice a similar progression from twinge to taser in my left leg. At that moment, when I ceased to be able to successfully take two meaningful steps it hit me; I'm fucked. What can I tell you about the following 21km? There I was, a shuffling, swearing characterture of pain, humiliation, and disappointment. Every so often I would stop to stretch out my legs, slowly resume and convince myself that I could now muster a gentle jog. Every time my body would rebuke me with renewed pain. I remember a number of times reaching an uneasy acceptance with my situation, feeling some sense of pride in the fact that I was still going, determined to finish; no more so than two specific places along my slow, gibbled march through hell.

First, there was the moment when I looked down at my watch to see the time 4:00:00 pass by most unceremoniously. Up to this point I had cursed, I had winced in pain, I had clinched my fists in rage; but now I had tears in my eyes. When I had started out I was quite confident that I would make 4 hours, or at least something very close to it. Instead I was crushed by the realization that not only was I supposed to be finishing the race at this point in time, but I had another 12km to go! Compounding this was the thought that I had my family waiting for me at the finish line. How long would they have to wait for me to drag my arse home?

Second, there was the the incident at the 41km mark. That's right, one kilometer to go before I could put all of this behind me. At this point I could not do more than a shuffle, maybe with a bit of a hop to potentially propel me an extra few centimeters forward. Suddenly, as I was eyeing the distance marker, both my calves seized violently and I came crashing to the ground. I can only remember one time in my life when my muscles had seized this badly, that was back in swimming lessons; they had to haul me out of the pool and massage my leg till the demon within relinquished its vice-like grip. I had managed to pull myself onto the curb, trying to focus all my mental abilities on keeping my legs perfectly still as any small movement would cause another jolt of pain to explode through them. One of the race stewards came by and asked if I wanted him to get medical to check me out. I thanked him, but told him that I would be fine; I just needed to rest a bit. The steward insisted and radioed out position in. That did it! I was not going to be carted off the course! I slowly got to my feet and very gingerly started to take steps. By the time the first aid cart pulled up I assured the medical staff that I was fine and would be able to continue; and continue I did. The last kilometer was slow, but by the time I turned the last corner and could see the finish area and my spirits finally picked up. At least, I thought, this is coming to an end. Normally I try to end all my runs with a final sprint; a final triumphant burst of speed and pride that, if nothing else, looks good for the photos. On this occasion my finishing photos had me stumbling across the finish line like some zombie decked out a cool t-shirt with a running refrigerator on it. Brilliant.

From clever dick...

... to zombie chic.

This year's marathon has all this emotional baggage, plus more! as I have to also deal with my current physical predicament, plantar faciitis (see Confessions of a reluctant runner. Part 5). While my foot has gotten better, it is still far from 100%. Add to this the fact that I haven't been able to do much running as of late, and I will definitely need to step things up in terms of conditioning while at the same time preventing myself from aggravating my foot too much.

Last year I took it for granted that because the course had changed, I would have an easier time of it; I should have known better than that, being generally cynical in nature, and at best pessimistically optimistic. This time I will try to approach the marathon in the same way I did my half-marathon this past February (see Confessions of a reluctant runner. Part 3 and Part 3 [addendum]). I'm out to challenge myself, not kill myself. I need to step back and realize that I'm running for myself and nobody else. There's no prize on the line; no lives are hanging in the balance; this is not my profession. I'm going to do my best to get some more training in; I'm going to tinker with my playlist and make it the best I can; I'm going to show up on race day and give it a shot, because, when all is said and done, in my heart I know this -- no matter how painful it gets; no matter how hard it may become to continue on; there's no way in hell they'll be ferrying me over the finish line in the back of a golf cart, because, goddammit, I paid money to do this!