Well, I finished a marathon and the thought that "I'm never doing this
again" never came. 26.2 is quite an experience. Everything over 20
miles was new territory for me and it was very hard, but not as hard as
I imagined it could be. A couple of fitters encouraged me to blog about
my experience, but they might be sorry they said so after they see how
long this is!

Backing up a bit, I was very happy to be going into race weekend feeling
healthy and strong. I had a little soreness in my left calf that I
wondered if it could get aggravated during the run, but it never did. I
was especially thankful that I didn't catch the cold that was going
through my house. I had two kids home sick on Friday. I don't know if
a person can OD on Airborne, but I'm sure I pushed it to the limit. I
was very good to follow all of my knowledge on nutrition and supplements
during my training and leading up to the marathon. My overall training
went great except for a 2 week period when I had runner's knee, but even
then I did some pool running - I felt very primed and ready to go.
Thanks for the part many of you played in preparing to 'Finish It'!!

The Colorado Marathon starts at an ungodly hour. I set two alarms for
2:00am in order to get all of my pre-race stuff done by 3:45 when I was
going to meet Todd Norman in the lobby of our hotel. I went to bed at
9:30, fell fast asleep, woke up at 10:40 to pee off the rest of my
hydration effort, fell fast asleep again and woke up at 1:51. I can't
imagine the night before going any better!

One lesson I learned in the morning was my plan to alleviate a caffeine
headache by drinking green tea w/ pomegranate (30mg of caffeine) and
eating one Espresso Hammer Gel (50mg of caffeine) didn't work. I had
wanted to avoid the acid feeling in my stomach that coffee gives me, but
I didn't want to deal with a pain in my head for 26.2 miles. I didn't
feel the pain during the race, I think only because other pains masked
it, but after the race I felt a headache. It wasn't until just before I
went to bed, after taking 3 doses of pain medicine thru the day, that I
realized it must be a caffeine headache. I woke up with it this
morning, had some coffee and it went away.

Back to race morning, Todd and I got to the long line of luxury buses by
about 4:20. It was weird that the bus driver had an extremely gruesome
movie showing on the bus. My parents and I had driven the race route
the day before so I didn't have as much of a shock about the distance it
took to get us to the starting line, but it does seem like it's much
further than 26 miles. We arrived at about 5:15 to the deeper darkness
of a mountain canyon.

Another thing I learned was, at that early of an hour, how difficult it
was to take care of one of the most important jobs one must do before a
race - let's see, how should I put this - well, we're all athletes - we
know that you just have to take a dump before the amount of movement we
have during a race or that running movement will trigger a painful need
for our bowels to move. On the bus, Todd said he was having the same
problem and being the health professional he is, he, I think correctly,
diagnosed it as our bodies not be used to that kind of movement so early
in the morning. I quickly got in line for the porta-potties when we
arrived at the starting line, but I still couldn't 'M' those 'B's. By
this time, I was getting seriously worried. Todd and I hung out near
the beautiful sounding river nearby for a while, then I went to go try
again. By then the lines for the bathrooms were extremely long and I
wondered if I would get in before the race started. Finally, I got my
last shot...and to my delight it worked! If anyone has a tip for
avoiding - actually for voiding such an early morning problem, I'd love
to learn it!

We met up with Steve, Paul and Glenn and I saw my wife's colleague,
Chris McIntyre who teaches Chemistry at Doherty - he eventually became
the first finisher from Colorado Springs coming in at 3:03 and 30th
overall! Looking around, I noted how almost every single runner looked
like a good runner, which as very different from the crowd at the
Chicago Marathon which has lots and lots of people who you look at and
think, "I'll at least be able to beat that guy". This was a serious
bunch of runners and everyone looked focused and ready to go. We
started at 6:15, and the sun had just started to come out on a gorgeous
morning.

I had just purchased one of the first Nike Sportbands to come out in
Colorado Springs at Boulder Running Company last Thursday. I punched
the recording button right as I crossed the timing mat and since I had
done a calibration run, I felt like I could trust the feedback I would
get on pace and distance. I wanted to keep a 8:20-8:30 pace in the
beginning, but it was hard to keep it slower than 8:10 and it didn't
seem like we were going that fast. A problem surfaced at about mile 6
or 7 - my right hip flexor started to knot up on me. I dealt with it
for the rest of the race and I think that was a main reason I wasn't
able to reach my goal of 3:45.

At about mile 9 or so, I started to hear those around me talk about how
the mile markers were off on what they were getting even on their
Garmins. I had been mostly only looking at my pace reading and I
checked the mileage and my was off worse than theirs. At the halfway
point I passed 13.1 on my SportBand significantly earlier than I ended
up crossing the timing mat. The official time gave my split time as
1:56:18 and I needed to be at 1:52:30, so I was worried about reaching
my goal, but I figured it gave me a good shot at a negative split. I
felt great at that point.

Spectator wise, the Colorado Marathon is much different than most
marathons. Because we start deep in a canyon and traffic outside of
those who live there is not allowed, there was only a handful of people
watching until about mile 16. By that time in the Chicago Marathon, we
would have passed about 600,000 people ringing cowbells and supporting
us above and beyond most crowds. The trade off for the Colorado is
absolutely beautiful scenery. It is almost meditative. In fact, one of
the only residents who made a big effort to support the runners lived on
the opposite side of the river and played a really nice Indian, guru,
meditation type music very loudly and we could hear about 3 people
cheering but we couldn't see them through the trees. At mile 16 or so
we come out of the canyon and we started to have some cheering. At 17
there is a gas station called Ted's Place where a pretty large group of
people formed a 'tunnel' we needed to run through that reminded me of
the crowds at the Tour de France on the top of mountian rides. My dad
and mom were there and I high fived my dad as I went by. It was a real
charge to see them and the rest of the enthusiastic crowd.

At 18 1/2 we make a pretty steep climb up a hill for about half a mile -
the only significant hill in the race. I love running hills and I was
happy that I could muster enough to give it a good run - the times I
checked my pace on the way up I was right at about 8:10. The last 5
miles we ran on a bike path and that was the toughest stretch for me.
Not that it was a bike path, but it was around the wall hitting time. I
always wondered what it was like to hit the wall. If I did hit the
wall, it wasn't as I imagined it. It was just that I got to where I
couldn't keep up a decent pace - I was going at about a 9:00-9:30 pace
and I had to will myself to keep running. I wanted so badly to stop and
walk for a little while, but the thought that I was already behind my
goal pace made me keep going. I also noticed my breathing was getting
quick and raspy - not from being out of breath, but I think it would
have been scary to see my heart rate at that time.

One thing that kept me going was dedicating each of the last 10 miles to
different loved ones. The only problem was I missed seeing the 23 mile
mark. Mile 22 was dedicated to our son Charles and I started thinking
'man this is one long mile', then suddenly I came upon mile 24 and it
really encouraged me that I was a mile further than I thought. The last
couple of miles seemed like they would never end, then with about half a
mile to go we made a sharp turn onto a downtown street in Fort Collins
and right there Charles was waiting for me. I found it much harder to
acknowledge him in a normal happy way. It was so great to see him,
however, and he started running beside me which was cool. Then I saw my
wife, Hallie, on the other side of the road and she was loudly cheering
me on - another boost! Then our daughter, Laura, was a little ways down
on the other side again and I loved seeing her sweet face. By that time
there were tons of people cheering very loudly and the final stretch was
packed with people. I had bragged to my parents that I like to dig deep
at the finish and go as fast as I possibly can. I was happy to be able
to push it pretty fast, but it was nothing like the all out sprint I
like to finish with - I was probably at a 7:30 pace. As I got within
about 20 feet of the finish line the announcer called each person's
name, which was cool. I crossed the line and was wobbelly as a guy put
a medal on me. My parents and our son John were within a few feet to my
left behind a barrier. I felt so cramped and it was so difficult to go
those few feet over to them that I wondered how in the world I was able
to run that last part of the race. I got to them, put my arms around
them and couldn't move.

It was weird that I didn't feel the elated feeling I thought I would
have. It was more of a feeling of great relief that I didn't need to
run any more. It felt very matter of fact. I heard Steve's name called
by the announcer, but I couldn't turn around to see him finish. I
finally turned around and saw Steve over with Todd and his daughters.
I'm gave a weak wave and I think I smiled a little bit, but everything
was hard to do at that point. It sure seemed like I was moving around
in a much more labored way than most every other runner.

Two cool things happened at the end. I recognized a name on the back of
a shirt of this one guy as one of the Nike Plus guys I often see in Nike
Plus challenges. His Nike name is 1Miletogo because he feels we should
live all of our lives like we have one mile to go in a race. Real nice
guy and it was fun to put a face and a real name with a virtual friend.
The other cool thing was a guy holding a small boy on his shoulders came
up from behind and had me turn around so his son could see the front of
my Jack Quinn's shirt. He said, "Look Jack, there's your name!" I
thought, how cute, the little guy's name is Jack. Turns out it is JACK
QUINN! He is a really cute tiny boy, maybe 1 1/2 years old and his name
is Jack Quinn! Somehow I always envisioned Jack Quinn being older. His
brother's name is Charlie Quinn. His dad runs with the Irish Pub
offshoot of our club in Denver and he was wearing the shirt with their
logo on it. I got my picture taken with Jack Quinn on my shoulders and
I told them if they are ever in Colorado Springs on a Tuesday evening,
they have to stop by to get treated like roalty!

We hung around a little bit and started talking about how we should get
back to our hotel before check out time with enough time so I could
change. I felt so dazed and everything seemed to take a long time,
especially thinking. I felt so bad afterward that I didn't think about
waiting for Paul and Glenn to finish in order to congratulate them.

My Nike Sportband ended up being exactly 1.5 miles off - it registered
27.7 miles at the finish line. My official time was 3:57:00 and my
Sportband had me at 3:41 something at 26.2 miles, which is exactly what
I wanted to do and expected to be able to do. I will work on
callibrating it better, but even those with Garmin GPS units were off a
decent amount. I guess that's just the way it goes. I was still very
happy to do a sub 4 hour time on my first marathon.

Recovery wise, I felt like I did all the right things - I drank some
Hammer Recoverite I had asked my dad to bring to the finish line. I ate
good food they offered the runners. I let cold water spray on my legs
after my shower (we didn't have enough time for an ice bath in the hotel
room). I had a wonderful tasting steak, loaded mashed potatoes and
steamed vegetable mix at Chili's for lunch. I walked around as much as
I could and we stopped in Castle Rock at the Outlet stores where Iwas
able to walk some more. As soon as I got home I took an Epsom Salt
bath, then a long ice bath. I took a three hour nap in the afternoon.
I'm sure all of that helped, but it isn't magical. My legs still burn
like crazy.

Today I was driving around noticing how beautiful the weather is and had
the thought, "I'd love to go for a run right now". Then I remembered
that I just ran a marathon yesterday and I should wait a while before I
start running again - but, I thought it was neat that I had the thought!
I am itching to get ready for the Bolder Boulder and I'm really looking
forward to starting to train for a fall marathon. This time I think
I'll do more speed work, more core work, a little more weight lifting
(especially upper body work that is good for runners) and I think I'm
going to get a coach this time. I have to shave off 27 minutes on my
next one so I can qualify for Boston. That seems like a lot of time,
but I'll give it my best shot!

Thanks so very much for the part each of you played in helping me to
finish my first marathon!