At last I finished my two undergrad degrees. So I had more time to train for this marathon. I continued my jogging (sometimes barefoot) at Kauai Beach at my usual distance of about 8 or 9 km. But this time I added weight training, especially for my legs. I trained heavy with 4 or 5 sets per exercise and with relatively low reps of about 8 to 12. I hoped to finish the marathon in less than 4 hours.
However, my usual ignorance about marathon preparation continued. Why it never occurred to me to do some research about this I don’t know. I hadn’t heard about the Internet at that time, but I could still have done my research the good old fashioned way with books and magazine. I did not know anything about the importance of long runs. And my ignorance about carbo-loading continued. And I still knew nothing about the “wall”.
But I did not want to go hungry as I did the last marathon. So I requested my friend and her husband to meet me at about the 30 km mark, with some bananas (and sports cream for my weary legs).
The run started off smoothly. I was running quite comfortably. The 10 km mark went by. 20 km followed soon after. Fitness wasn’t a problem. My legs were fine. The weight training might have helped.
But at about 28 km, I began to fill very hungry again. I had hit the “wall”, though I didn’t know then that it was the dreaded “wall”. I needed the bananas. Also, my legs, particularly the calves, were feeling strained. I needed the sports cream. I knew that soon I would have them, so I continued running at almost the same pace.
30 km came. Where were they? They would appear soon. 31 km came and still no sight of them. Every step was very hard at this point. My legs felt like lead. I tried to maintain my pace but wasn’t able to. Soon I reached 38 km. By this time, I had given up all hope of finding my friends.
My pace was slackening steadily right to the finish line. My timing was a disappointing 4 hours and 11 mins. Oh well, maybe I would do better next marathon.
Later, when I asked my friends what had happened, they replied that the place where they were supposed to meet me was very crowded. So we must have missed one another.
I often wonder: if I had gotten my bananas and sports cream, would my timing have gone under 4 hours? Most probably. |
