Marathon Bucket List Item Accomplished

My pre-race meal consisted of a bowl of oatmeal, a banana, a bag of Raspberry flavor Powerbar Gel Blasts and a 16 ounce bottle of strawberry citrus flavored Clif Quench sports drink. The sports drink maintains it has the proper balance of carbs and electrolytes. I would not classify this beverage as refreshing due to high levels of palatable sodium. I force myself to finish the Clif Quench sports drinks because it's my hope they will be of some benefit during the race.

Harrisburg is only a thirty minute drive from my home. Sunday's commute went very well as I was able to get to City Island without any issues. The forecast was for sunny weather and while the morning temperatures were brisk at about 43 degrees, there was no wind to contend with.

I arrived at about 7:30 am, an hour before the race was to begin. I was able to park in the lot adjacent to the baseball stadium. If you arrived anytime later than 7:45 am you had to park within a lot on the southern side of the Market street bridge.

The pre-race packet pickup was well organized. This race was unique in that a jacket with the race logo was given to each runner. I was race bib number 830 for this race. Since the weather was a tad chilly, I hung out in the car until 8:00 am. I then made my way up to the Market street bridge. The bridge was closed down at 8:20 am for the start of the race.

I believe there were on the order of 900 runners at the starting line for the 37th running of the Harrisburg marathon. It's an exciting time at the beginning of a race with all of the mass of humanity standing around waiting to unleash all of their collective energy bundled up inside. I wanted to have a clock time that was clock to my net time so I inched up to about the sixth or seventh layer of persons behind the starting line.

For the sake of brevity I will not go into a mile by mile description of the race. My family was at the mile fifteen mark and my eldest son was holding a sign reading 'Go Jeff'. The 'Go Daddy' sign slogan was nixed due to the trashy television commercials by the company of the same name. I'll always remember the visual of Dylan holding the sign because he was so proud of his creation.

I had trepidations regarding my ability to complete a marathon. The longest race I had completed before the marathon was only twelve miles. I had not trained as diligently as one should for a marathon. In retrospect, I believe if you haven't completed a marathon training run of twenty miles then you should not attempt to finish a marathon in a competitive time frame.

Resting for the week prior to the marathon enabled myself to garnish as much energy as possible in reserve for the race. Miraculously, I did not suffer any cramps, muscle pulls or any other debilitating ailments because my legs were fresh at the onset of the race.

My only equipment issue was with my sneakers. At about the ten mile mark, the balls of my feet (forefeet) began burning up. It felt as though my socks were scrunched up underneath them. Every step I ran thereafter felt like I was stepping on small hot pebbles with my bare feet. I had run with these sneakers on a seven mile training run so I was caught off guard when I was ready to discard them for a new pair mid way through the race.

Running as a sport is very unique in that your training is usually very highly correlated to your performances. My marathon training was very poor, most would regard it as non-existent, and as a result my performance was poor. My stated goal for this was to finish, and finish I did.

If you have ever been at a gym and have done leg press repetitions until you can't do anymore and then attempt to get off the machine and walk, then you know exactly how my legs felt after the race. Aside of my knees feeling stiff to the point where they felt like the tin man's knees in the Wizard of Oz, I was in decent shape for traversing 26.2 miles. I also caught a cold sometime during the day. I was sneezing on the entire drive home.

There are two classes of accomplished marathon runners; those who are genetically predisposed for completing long distances such as a marathon and those who are phenomenally trained to accomplish running this distance. An elite marathon runner would be a member of both classes. Unfortunately, I was not in either class.

Do I have any desire to run another marathon ? At the moment, I have none whatsoever. A half marathon is as far as I would like to run in the future. I can train for the two hours necessary to complete a half marathon, but really do not have the time and desire to complete three plus hour training runs necessary for a marathon. In a similar vein, I enjoy playing nine holes of golf for a couple of hours. When you play eighteen holes of golf, you are engaging in a four to five hour afternoon on the course.

Overall I had an enjoyable experience. It was a great day for exercising and I was able to eradicate a longstanding desire to finish a marathon. I received a finisher's medal which will most likely be the only marathon finisher's medal I will ever be awarded.