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October 31, 2005
3:41:43/160
Tommy Hendricks used to say if you're going to play a wrong note, play it loudly.
My splits started out okay. At 7 km, I was at 29:19, at 1/2 marathon, 90 minutes. A little slow, but not dire.
Not dire, except for the cramps. At 16 km, I was already suffering, try to relax my feet to keep them from knotting up. At the halfway point, I was fighting severe cramps, the kind where your toes start to curl in and your muscles go into spasms you cannot relax.
I didn't get anything like that in Lyon until nearly the end of the run, probably 20 km later than today. I considered giving up and finishing the half marathon which had started simultaneously, but some child on a bridge above us had asked me at 18 km, "How many kilometers are you running, mister?"
"42 kilometers," I replied.
At 22 km, my legs came to a stop at one point. I got them going again, but was losing time seriously. At 28 km, I was 2:02 already.
At somewhere around 30 km, I could not run due to cramps. At 32 km, I could barely walk. I think 32-35 km took the longest. For minutes at a time, I balanced on the side of the road in immobile agony. I'd already thrown in the towel at that point, but decided the quickest way to get it over with would be to finish walking, maybe jogging. After about 35 km, in a foul mood, I managed to start jogging again, interspersed with lots of walking.
Given the situation with my legs and feet, I never seem to have hit the wall, even though the refreshments were not only sporadic, but also mainly just plain bottled water. I was going too slowly to hit the wall. There's a 3-hour marathon in me. I'm sure.
Next season I'm going to skip the marathons, however, and run only shorter races (5-21 km) instead. 18 weeks down the drain for a few cramps is simply too frustrating.
Posted by Mark at October 31, 2005 11:42 PM
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