Random Thoughts About The 2009 Long Beach Marathon Experience

I’m at the time of my life that due to my ankle problems, I never expected to run a marathon again. But on Sunday, I managed to do just that. I didn’t realize that I haven’t run a marathon in 4 years until I checked my logbooks when I woke up Sunday morning. With recent training results and a lot of encouragement from members of our running club and my childhood friends living in other states and countries, I went out and played with 23,000 other people on the streets of Long Beach.

The night before the marathon, I plugged my cell phone into the charger but forgot to turn it off first. Normally, that’s not a problem, but I have the phone’s alarm set to go off at 12:30 a.m. for my lunch break at work. So after retiring to bed at about 11 p.m., I was awakened by my cell phone alarm and was restless the rest of the night. Fortunately I had a good night’s sleep Friday night.

Because I ate more sensibly this year instead of doing full-on carbo loading several days before the race, I didn’t gain any unnecessary weight.

Linda, my run/walk training partner, and I made arrangements to meet at the AREC Club tent early and about 15 minutes before the start of the race, we proceeded to the starting line. Our group that positioned ourselves with the wave 4 crowd included Rich, Colleen, Tam, Sophie, Monica, Linda, and and me. I like the wave start because it was not too crowded and it enables you to run right away after you cross the starting line, instead of having to walk several minutes before you can even start shuffling your feet during a mass start.

One of the most admirable things I saw in the race was Sterling pushing a running stroller with his mom in it. We saw them at about mile 4 and they were doing the half marathon. Sterling later posted a picture with mom holding a cup of beer at the finish. Funny guy, that Sterling!

Linda and I stuck to the plan of running for 4 minutes, then walking for 1 minute, and when our watches signaled that it was time for a walk break we would announce “walking!”, so the people beside and behind could adjust accordingly and go around us. Later in the race, despite my legs starting to feel heavy and Linda getting short of breath at times, we managed to keep the pace even.

We plugged along steadily and while I wasn’t aware of how far we have been running, I thought the tough part of the course was seeing mile markers 23, 22, and 21 on the other side of the street. The organizers shouldn’t have those signs 2-sided so the outbound runners don’t have to see how much farther they have to go before they reach that point on their way back.

I saw my neighbor and former training partner Katherine as she was inbound at the 22 mile mark. She will probably tease me later about running the marathon because I’ve been telling her in the past few years that I’m retired from marathoning.

In past marathons, I used to consume an energy gel about every 45 minutes from the start of the race but on Sunday I didn’t take one until 18 and 23 miles.

Just before 21 miles there was group of people wearing cowboy/cowgirl outfits passing out water at the corner of Palo Verde and Atherton. I was about to ask the guitar player wearing a dress for a date until I noticed ‘her’ full moustache and beard.

The Long Beach Hash House Harriers were in full force at 21 miles as usual with their beer offering, but which I did not partake. Maybe next time. Thanks to Emmett, Bernard and the rest for being out there to cheer us on.

I’ve always gotten cramps in my legs while running a marathon regardless of pace and they would occur anywhere from 18 miles or later, so it wasn’t a total surprise that it happened again on Sunday. I was on what I call Cramp Management after 23 miles. The two heads of my calf muscles on both legs seemed to be doing an uncontrollable jig. I’m surprised I didn’t topple over. All I could do was walk a little bit for the spasms to stop momentarily specially after 24 miles. At least yesterday, it didn’t start happening until after 23 miles and maybe because I attacked that last hill. I didn’t lack energy and didn’t feel that I hit the wall. I was even talking, joking, and singing between 19 and 23 miles. What surprised me was that I even got a cramp on my left latissimus dorsi muscle.

A Filipino guy ran with me after 24 miles and asked me if we will still be able to go under 5 hours and I responded that I wasn’t too concerned about it. Frankly, I didn’t know how long I’ve been running because I was only concentrating on running 4 minutes at a time. I didn’t know my total time until the finish when I clicked my watch off.

Linda, as in the past few weeks, provided the support I needed to keep me steady. She finished a few seconds ahead of me and she broke 5 hours for the first time. Congratulations on your PR, Linda! You were spot on when you told Lew that you would be finishing about noontime. As we approached the finish line with Linda a few seconds ahead of me, I heard her name being announced on the public address system. I was surprised when my name was announced too and I couldn’t help but raise my arms up to acknowledge it. Good thing the announcer pronounced my last name correctly J

Finishing gave me such a mix of positive emotions: tears (well, almost) of joy, happiness, and relief. I was surprised that my finishing time while using the run/walk method is the same as the one I had 4 years ago when I ran my last marathon but flamed out at the end, and I was still running faster at the time. My official finish time was 4:50:45, 11:06 pace, which was better than our 21 mile pace 3 weeks ago. Overall place = 1999, place among males = 1349, age division place = 132. Linda, like I told you a few weeks ago, our projected finishing time was still in upper 40% of all marathoners if 5000 ran it. Because we weren’t able to run the tangents all the time, my GPS watch registered 26.66 miles/10:55 pace.

I may have to write Jeff Galloway to let him know that it is not necessary to run/walk more than 26 miles in training to be able to finish a marathon. Jeff Galloway and Linda have given my long distance running new life and they are greatly appreciated.

I don’t know what to ice, all my joints and muscles hurt. The only thing that doesn’t hurt right now is smiling, but I won’t be surprised if that hurts much later too. I don’t remember hurting this much in the past after finishing a marathon. One good thing: no holes in my socks this time.

I was planning on indulging in chili fries with onions and peppers from a diner which I would pass on my way home, but by the time I left the parking lot, I was no longer craving it. Maybe some other day.

Some runners may have met their time goals, others not, and some finished their first marathons. Others may have not run as well as they wanted to, but I’m sure we all gave it our best effort and that’s all that counts. Kudos to my new friends Sophie and Monica for finishing their first marathon!