Well, the feeling of fatigue I discussed in the pre-race post turned out to be some sort of a mild stomach bug. While normally my metabolism is running at 100mph, I couldn't eat anything for most of the day on Friday. Just a little bit of borsch, some edamame and potato chowder soup. And everything ached all over. Not a good thing two days before the race.
I hung out with Galen rather incoherently after work on Friday, thinking that if I wake up feeling like this tomorrow I might have to rethink whether I'm running. Then I remember the state that Sarah was in (dying of bronchitis) when we did the 20 mi trail race in pouring rain back in November and decided I'm going to do it no matter what.
I drove to my folks' house and managed to get to bed before 10. Despite waking up in the middle of the night for an hour or two, I got solid 8-9 hours of sleep and woke up feeling refreshed, clear-headed, not achy, but still weak. Great!
Eating still wasn't working quite right. I barely got down a sandwich that my dad made for breakfast - it tasted like cardboard. Picked up Sarah at the airport and spent the day dealing with errands (talking to jeweler about wedding bands, picking up marathon stuff) and trying to get as much carbs down as possible.. not very successfully. Nevertheless, my energy levels continued to improve throughout the day. When Sarah and I had to run across the street on a yellow light... it felt good! Not stiff or achy. YES.
Prepped supplies for tomorrow. I was tempted to wear my Underarmour long-sleeve back from Caltech trak days, but wearing it around the house for a couple of minutes, I decided I would get too hot in it. So instead I opted for a merino wool t-shirt. Laid out my PowerBar gels - I figured if I am not getting enough food in me, I will just have to propel myself with carbo gels, caffeine (some of the gels have 25-50mg of caffeine) and gatorade at the race. Not as good as carbo-loading in advance, but it would have to do.
Went to bed around 10 and surprisingly got a decent amount of sleep, despite folks coming in and out and being generally pumped about the race. (I would look at Sarah and say with semi-mock disbelief "We're running a marathon tomorrow" and she'd look back at me with "Shit!")
Got up at 5:20, showered (call me vain, but I haven't washed my hair in a couple of days and it felt and looked disgusting), got ready, and got picked up by Matt, Howard, and Suz (Howard's girlfriend) around 5:50. Ate a banana and a half in the car, tried eating a Clif bar... but could barely get it down. Maybe ate half of it. Not good. Oh well, it's going to have to be the gels.
All roads leading up to Dodger Stadium were a parking lot, not surprisingly so. So we wound up getting out of the car and walking over 2 miles. Thankfully it wasn't raining.
Sarah and I got separated from Matt & Howard along the way, so we wound up starting without them. I didn't see either of them throughout the race. I ate an apple-flavored gel with 25mg of caffeine to get my juices flowing about 30 minutes pre-start.
It was a huge crowd of people but it also felt really disorganized as there wasn't enough structure or staff to tell folks where to go. I felt bewildered yet excited to be part of something so enormous.
The announced announced the wheelchairs, then the elite women (who got a head start), and 17 minutes later everybody else. Oh shit, here we go. My excitement built as we made our way to the start line in a river of people of all colors (skin and clothes), heights, shapes (ok, they were skinnier than the average Americans), and walks of life.
We crossed the start line only about 6 minutes later than the elite men. I was surprised that it took so little time to get 15000 people through. My legs felt good, my energy felt good. Well, here it goes! Sarah and I started our watches and off we go.
Running in a river of people is really slow. Eventually I caught on to Sarah's technique of bypassing the crowd on the sides and sidewalks. So we were able to go fast from the very beginning which was nice and a good morale boost.
So speaking of my strategy... I wasn't really sure! Judging from training runs, I thought I should be able to get 3:45 or 8:30 minute pace no problem. But was inwardly hoping for a better pace, perhaps 8:15, which puts me solidly into the 3:30s. So when I clocked in my first mile at just over 8:00, I thought I was just going fast at the start.
Overall, I think I did a good job of not "going out too fast" as my pace remained remarkably consistent at around 8:00-8:15.
Sairy and I ran together for a mile or two and after that I was on my own. The first drops of rain came as we were getting out of Dodger stadium and I felt lucky to be running and generating heat instead of standing around.
The rain got stronger as we ran through China town and Downtown LA. I was amazed and grateful at how many people came out to support us in what was becoming pouring rain. They were clapping, screaming, beating drums. It was a really neat feeling to run through the many different communities in LA and experience their culture and support.
The crowd was still very thick. I kept trying to run in the middle because the road is slanted on the side, but that kept getting me bogged down. So I gave up and went off to the side or sidewalk.
I was promised "an inflatable mile marker at every mile." So after seeing the big orange giant balloon looking thing with Mile 1, I was expecting it for mile 2, but didn't see it. "Maybe I'm running way slower", I thought to myself? It didn't feel like it, so I pushed the thought away and kept focusing on running.
Lo and behold at Mile 3 marker I'm still at just over 8:00 pace. I felt a bit low on energy as we neared one of the hills in Downtown - one of a handful hills with a significant incline on the course. So I utilized the Ultramarathon mantra of walking uphills by slowing down and eating a non-caffeinated vanilla flavored gel. It was disgusting.
It felt like I was going slow, but seeing the next available marker, turned out I was still at around 8:05 pace. My legs started feeling a little bit tired around mile 5-6. So I made a brief stop at a Gatorade station by the pond in Echo Park which looked pretty with all the rain drops. I caught my breath, chugged the Gatorade, and by the time I got going, it felt like I was getting into "I can run like this forever" mode which is the best feeling about running.
And right as that was happening, I passed by a DJ stand blasting something upbeat and electronic, and I was PUMPED. I felt so happy and elated to be out there running with all these people in the beautiful city of Los Angeles, grateful to the folks who put up the music and all the fans who were out cheering. Life is good!
It's fairly frequent with me to take around 45 minutes to warm up and get into the "I can run forever" rhythm. And it also often happens that I get into my rhythm right after taking a short pause to get some calories. So this happened like clockwork.
Riding that high for the next number of miles was pleasant. The miles blended into each other… 7…9… 11. I continued making a solid 8:05-8:07 pace and eventually found myself on Hollywood Boulevard with its own folks and flavors. Almost to the halfway mark! At what point am I going to hit my wall?
Feeling my muscles getting a little sore and tired – generally a sign of more food needed – I slowed down and had another gel, a caffeinated one of some fruity flavor, on one of the uphills leading off Hollywood boulevard, something like mile 11. Taking the rest on the uphill and the sugar helped restore me, and I flushed it down with some Gatorade and water at the next opportunity.
In the next few miles I chugged another gel, this one double-caffeinated (50mg). And a little bit later, getting into Beverly Hills, I found myself in complete Euphoria. It must have been the caffeine combined with the runner’s high and general happiness of making such a good time and still not feeling the list bit tired. I felt ecstatic.
The deluge of rain unleashed full force, massive rain drops bombarding my already soaked soaked body, cold gusty wind blowing me back, many folks around looking gloomy and determined… and I didn’t care. I felt great. Running through those gorgeous, manicured streets, I spread my arms out and screamed, “Come on Rain, bring it on!!! Is this all you’ve got!?!” I screamed as I passed fans, riling them up. I made a detour to give a high-5 to a little boy and girl watching on the side, their smiling parents behind. I ran by lines of fans giving double high 5s to everyone.
Some helpful fan is handing out water bottles along the way. I yell “Thanks!” to thank him for his kindness, but run right past him, feeling hydrated well-enough. Another guy behind me picks up the water bottle and actually offers me a sip, but I decline.
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, mile 16, here I come, just 10 to go and I can speed up!
Rodeo drive, I recognized in passing the Frank Lloyd Wright building that Sarah and I visited for my History of Architecture final project. That was in our first month of dating.
Oh, there is another fan on the side, and older gentleman in a black jacket who looks like he wants a high 5. Off I go, clap, and keep going…
And stumble to a grinding halt as my right hamstring refuses to let go and is seized by icy, steely and piercingly painful sensation of a cramp. The first thought that flashes in my mind is the irony of my showing off to be shot down so brutally. And the second thought is NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Fortunately I cramped right next to a coconut water station which claims that it’s perfect against cramping. LUCKY ME as I stumble my way to the station and greedily gulp down 4-5 cups.
If there is one thing I know about cramping is that it’s caused by either a shortage of fluids or electrolytes or both. Since I’ve been eating gels and drinking Gatorade, I conclude that lack of liquids is the more likely culprit.
I take a rest at the coconut station and the realization sets in that I probably can’t continue at my 8 minute pace. Well, I made good progress so perhaps I can still finish at 3:45, my original goal. I make a mental note to drink more water along the way, and resume running.
While I’m running slower, I still seem to be able to maintain proper form and reasonable pace.
And then it happens. Somewhere around mile 18 both of my hamstrings cramp up at the same time in the most debilitating cramp of my life.
I stop dead in my tracks. In the middle of the road. The cold cruel rain cutting me all over. My hamstrings half contracted and absolutely stuck in that position. They hurt. They really hurt. The crazy part about the pain of a cramp is how all-encompassing it is. If you fall and scrape up your leg, it hurts where you scraped it up. But a cramped hamstring is filled with pain from top to bottom, inside out. And it feels that if I try to bend or unbend my leg just one bit, my muscle is going to tear to shreds.
And then I start realizing how frigging cold it really is. Running fast in my Euphoria, it didn’t matter. But as I slowed down, my heat generation slowed. And I’m sure my fuel was getting exhausted too. And now… completely soaked, cold, everyone passing me, standing in the middle of the road in pouring rain, desperately rubbing both of my hamstrings in hopes of massaging them to life, I hit the lowest physical low of my life.
Another runner stops next to me. “What’s going on buddy? Come on, you just got to keep going, yes, that’s right, start slow, but just gotta keep moving forward.” I make a few hesitant steps. “You want some of this pain reliever spray?” It’s not going to be useful against cramps, I know that. “Sure.” I say, and he sprays my hams and I rub it all over. His kindness and the placebo effect of the spray lifted my spirits and I started walking forward uncertainly and then a little more briskly, while continuously rubbing both of my hamstrings. I imagine it looks comical. It doesn’t feel comical.
At this point I resign to an idea of making or beating any specific time. It’s now Survival Mode. Just make it to the end and get it done. I hope this doesn’t happen at mile 16 of the Wasatch. Cuz if it does… we are screw-ewed. But I have to focus on the task at hand, I force myself to do that.
I attempt to run again, but after a little while it feels like cramps are at my doorstep again, so I slow down to a brisk walk. My energy levels feel great… I just can’t use my legs. How frustrating!
I’m also really cold. Thankfully the route passes under a bridge pretty soon. I get under the bridge and stop, taking big breaths and enjoying not being bombarded by rain. I feel like a down and out homeless person taking a reprieve under a bridge for the lack any other better place. And it feels demoralizing being off to the side and standing while everybody else is passing by. But I have to do for myself what I need to do for myself. And I’m so happy and relieved to stop, be dry (well, not get more wet), and take a breather. I consume my last gel, some fruity thing with no more caffeine, attempt to do a little bit of stretching (man do I feel stiff). Regretfully I leave the underpass and venture back out into the wet cold.
I stop at some aid stations and down several cups of water and Gatorade. But I don’t realize how dehydrated I am until I pick up a bottle of water from a kind fan, down it on the go, then finally feel the urge to pee, go into a porta-pottie, and observe the dense bright yellow texture of what comes out. Wow. Normally I pee every 60 minutes or so when I’m running and properly hydrated, and here I didn’t feel the urge until past hour 3.
“Wow, it’s Dima!” I hear a female voice from behind and to my left.
And I see Sarah, around mile 21. I explain to her that I cramped up at mile 16 and have been struggling since. She suggests we stop and stretch. That’s sweet of her to do that for me. I oblige, but instantly realize that I really don’t want to be stretching right now. I just want to be done. So I urge us to keep going and we do.
While normally I would feel very excited to run into Sarah, at that point, after struggling through and fending for myself for the last hours, I was in my own zone and just wanted to do my own thing, and get it done.
Thankfully Sarah is doing well… certainly pushing herself and having a tough time, but nothing catastrophically wrong. So next time I have an urge to go pee, I tell her to keep going, as I want her to meet her own goals and not hold back because of me.
I see another fan passing out goodies – WOW, these people are so nice to come out in the rain and buy all this stuff with their own money to give to me. “What do you need? We’ve got soda, sports drink, pretzels..”
“Can I just have that bottle of water? Thank you so much!”
And off I go, chugging the water. Soon I begin to feel bloated – probably a function of that stomach bug because I can’t possibly be overhydrated. So I drop the water on the ground and push on.
Around this time I discover something wonderful. If I have plenty of energy, I can barely move my legs, I am wearing 5-year old Asics with smoothed out bottoms, and the road is slick and slippery from the rain… what’s the best way for me to move forward? Of course, shuffle-sliding!!! It all seems nice and logical in retrospect… but at the time, I was just trying to find a way to move forward faster than walking that didn’t hurt. Ironically the rain that helped bring my downfall (being cold increases cramping) helped me get out of it.
I start makeshift skating on the slick road in my slick shoes. I can tell it’s HUGELY inefficient… but I have so much energy, it doesn’t matter. The most important thing is that I don’t even have to fully lift my legs off the ground. (And everytime I try, they feel like they’re going to cramp). But I’m going pretty fast. I’m actually passing people!
I’m out of my gels, but I finally get to the much anticipated Cliff Shot station at mile 22. I grab the first gel I see, a chocolate. Ewwww, but I’m too focused to be choosy.
I am gorging myself on the gel and then stop to get more water and Gatorade at some aid station. Oh man, I just have that feeling of stuffing myself with anything I can get ahold off. Sloppily spilling the water and Gatorade all over me and that gel in the mix. Whatever it takes to finish.
Some guy sees me struggling and encourages me to go on… I encourage him as well. We run into each other another couple of times and exchange words of encouragement.
Time is ticking down to beat Sarah Palin’s 3:59:36 – something my co-workers Matt, Howard, and I set out to do.
Finally I see a mile marker and realize that I have roughly 2 miles to go and roughly 20 minutes to do it.
Shit, it’s within reach!!! I am not meeting my personal goal of 3:45, but at least I can make this one.
But this whole time I’ve been playing a game of chicken with myself – if I stop shuffle-sliding and actually try to run, it feels like my legs are on the verge of cramping and I can have a debilitating cramp at any time that will set me back another 10-20 minutes at least.
The hell with it, all or nothing baby!!!
And I run. Awkwardly, heel-striking, but I’m running. It feels terrible but I’m determined to make a good run for it and I push through. My quads now feel extremely strained and like they’re about to cramp. I ignore it. I want to pee. I ignore it. Less than 2 miles left. Just have to beat 4 hours.
With a few minutes to go, I see the ocean. YES!!! I made it. From the map I remember that it’s another few blocks along the beach before the finish line. “It’s just around the corner” fans are yelling.
I turn the corner and my heart sinks. Few minutes left and I can’t even see the finish line yet. Those blocks are way longer than they look on the map!!
I know I’m not going to get sub-4 anymore, but I don’t slow down. Seconds before the 4 hour mark, I see the orange finish banner appear out of the rain and fog, like an alluring mirage.
The next 2.5 minutes stretch into a miserable eternity. I attempt to raise my arms in triumph as I cross the finish line, but I feel so exhausted that my arms go up for a split second and the attempt fizzles out before I cross. So my finishing pictures turn out pretty weak.
What do I feel after finish?
Relieved I don’t have to run anymore. Freezing cold as the rain sets in. Generally miserable.
Thankfully the race organizers are having people pass out emergency mylar blankets. I get mine. But it’s so windy, I can’t put it on. The strong wind is blowing the cold rain right into me and I’m already drenched. Pathetically I come up to a fan and ask for some help wrapping me in the blanket. She obliges and I express my gratitude.
I am so stiff and shivering I can barely move. The temperature is probably sub 60 and the rain plus wind make it a lot worse. I slowly and painfully I start making my way towards our meet-up spot.
“Are you OK?” some official looking lady asks me.
“Just stiff and cold” I reply.
“There is a warming area at a hotel over there” and she shows me directions.
Wow… WARM??? What a concept! I slowly make my way to the hotel. It’s half a block off the main road and at this point I’m shivering a lot.
I don’t know what comes over me as I’m walking up to the hotel, but I feel like breaking down and bawling. My eyes tear up. The overwhelming feeling of misery – a combination of being drained, stiff, beat up, drenched, and shivering.
I don’t remember the last time I cried from physical hardship. I also don’t remember ever feeling so physically bad. But I hold back the tears and limp my way into the hotel.
And what do you know… they kindly volunteered one of their big fancy ballrooms for sorry chaps like me. I was handed a blanket which I happily wrapped myself into instead of the flimsy mylar thing.
The room is a sorry site. Folks in various stages of misery. Some wrapped in many layers of blankets laying on the floor, some shivering quietly on a chair, others drinking hot tea in shaking shivering hands.
I sit down on a chair and the guy next to me strikes up a conversation. He is out of his wet clothes and shoes, drinking hot tea, and seems to be in a much better stage of recovery. It’s his marathon #16 or something like that. He points to the hot teas and asks if I want one. I say that I’ll get it later, but he insists on standing up and pouring one for me.
Awww, how sweet of him. The hot tea certainly warms up my spirits. I ask another guy if I could borrow his phone to text Sarah. I was half-expecting to find her here… because she gets really cold and is good at finding warm places like this. But she wasn’t.
I try to text her… but I’m too out of it to figure out how to send texts on the Blackberry and the guy doesn’t know how to do it. So I call her instead, taking a few attempts to dial the correct number with my unsteady fingers. She doesn’t pick up… awww… so I leave a message letting her know what’s going on with me.
I get up for another cup of tea, walk around a bit, and notice another chap in a sad state. So I offer to bring him a cup, and the beam of gratitude on his face was the brightest thing I’ve seen all day.
I’ve probably been here for at least 30 minutes already. I feel bad for making everybody wait so long. I wish I could call Matt or Howard, but I don’t have their phone numbers memorized, and my phone is in the checked belongings thing. So I ask a firefighter to help wrap me up in my mylar thing – wow I’m so grateful to all the folks who helped me that day.
I venture back out into the misery.
One bad thing about how they designed the race is that we have to walk almost a mile from the finish line to the meetup area… and today it happens to be in the cold and rain. I try to walk among people to shield from the wind, watching jealously as other runners reunite with their loved ones and waiting anxiously to reunite with mine.
Finally at the “Family Z” meet up spot… and nobody here.
I look around and start walking around, and Sarah comes out of nowhere! Yay!!! Apparently she didn’t see Matt/Howard either and was waiting under a tent.
Sarah got a few seconds under 4 hours. Go her! And apparently she’s amazed that I was only 2.5 minutes behind. She says I looked so pathetic when she left me that she thought there is no way I’m finishing in less than 4:30. So I pat myself on the back for pulling it together.
The other thing the organizers should have done, seeing the weather, is set up WAY more tents and heat lamps in the finish area. Alas, there were just a couple of tents and no heat lamps. Poor Sarah has been there freezing waiting for us.
I go find my stuff… In theory, getting your stuff checked to the finish line seemed like a great idea. In practice… when I got there, I found a chaotic mess of storage Pods with people’s stuff, cardboard boxes with stuff soaked in the rain, and a few volunteers here and there trying to help the best they could. And I’m talking about stuff from thousands of runners. It's a mess.
Finding the pod with the range of numbers that included mine, I first look through all the soaked stuff outside. Nothing for me. I make my slowly way inside the pod, already crowded with 20 other desperate, shivering runners, and the two volunteers manning it did their best to find my stuff to no avail. Dejected, I went back out into the rain and took one last look through the stuff strewn about outside.
And there it is!!! My yellow sweatshirt showing through a bag buried deep under a soaked cardboard box and other bags. Good thing I packed my phone in a ziplock bag.
Sweet taste of Victory.
I hobble over to Sarah, and run into Kamalah, a college buddy and Sarah’s cross country teammate. Putting on my dry warm sweater felt so nice. Then I take out my phone, and finally make contact with Howard, our ride. He was so cold when he finished that he and his girlfriend went to the car right away, not knowing where we are.
I’m glad I found my stuff with my phone. Otherwise, I don’t know how we would have found each other since Sarah didn’t have either of their numbers.
After some coordinating and wandering around the rainy streets of Santa Monica, Howard and Suz pick us up and the ordeal is over.
Sarah and I happily reject the idea of doing another run later this evening. Something we considered and were told would be good training for the Wasatch, practicing running on tired legs. Instead we had over to Galen’s for some R&R and then to my folks.
RECOVERY
The recovery was relatively easy. The evening after the marathon, the only things that really hurt were my left knee and right hip. As one of my yoga buddies pointed out, when I couldn’t use my legs, I started using the hips instead, in my shuff-sliding routine.
The next day I was feeling pretty good, able to walk up and down stairs and do squats. On Tuesday, my hamstrings finally hit. I guess it takes 24-48 hours for muscle soreness to peak. But that’s also not too bad. Wednesday the hams still hurt a bit, and Thursday I’m generally OK. I run for the first time again on Friday, and do a long run in Utah on Sunday without problems.
So this tells me I’m in really good shape!!! NICE :D
LESSONS LEARNED
1) I’m tougher than I thought I was. Never in my life have I been faced with this level of physical adversity, and I think I overcame it the best I could. I pushed my hardest all the way to the end. Definitely good training for the Wasatch where the mantra is to keep moving forward, no matter what. If you can run some of it, and keep moving forward the rest of the time, then it would be pretty hard NOT to finish in the 36 hour time limit. Of course “running some of it” (I’d say at least 50%) and continuing to move forward no matter what is easier said than done.
2) DRINK WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m used to my trusty Camelbak, not cups at aid stations. I think that messed me up. On my trail runs, I drink habitually every 5-10 minutes. Also, I think the rain and wetness created an illusion that I wasn’t thirsty. So very important lesson for the Wasatch is to continue drinking.
3) Make sure everyone exchanges phone numbers. Sarah’s not having Matt/Howard’s contact made the post-race logistics much more difficult.
to ease the impact on my legs. First, I'm going to try Matt's trekking poles on the trail tonight to see if I even like poles. If I do, than those would be a good addition to my arsenal. They weigh only 9oz for the pair and compress down to 1 foot, so can easily throw them into the camelbak.
