Finally Running My First Marathon

This is the second part of this story. You can read the first part here.

Or just keep reading, you’ll get it.

Background

My physiotherapist just finished diagnosing my foot injury. He told me that it would take 6 weeks or so to heal. The Marathon was in 6 weeks. He said I should forget about the Marathon. I tried.

But the next morning, I was still thinking about running the Marathon. I couldn’t just forget about it.

I wrote an email about it to my Marathon-veteran, health-professional friend, and asked him: “How bad would it be if I couldn’t run for weeks, almost up until the Marathon? Do I have a chance of making it or would I lose all my fitness?”

His reply was interesting.

He said that there are two types of fitness I should consider.

Cardiovascular fitness is quickly lost, but also quickly regained. You just have to get your heart pumping more and your lungs supplying your body with more oxygen.

But, running a Marathon isn’t actually about cardio fitness. It’s about the conditioning of the bones, ligaments and muscles in the legs.

For months now, I’ve been in a training program, exposing my legs to ever growing impact, week after week. I was preparing my body to take the brutal beating that is running 42.2km – around 4 hours of repetitive impact on your feet and legs, if you’re a newbie.

That kind of fitness, he said, takes a while to build, and it takes a long time to lose. My body has changed in a significant way to adjust to the running tasks I’ve put it through, and a few weeks or even 2 months without running won’t change that.

That was a relief. There was a sliver of hope.

So, assuming I could maintain my cardio fitness somehow until the race, and my foot was good enough to take the impact, I could maybe run the marathon.

It was a long shot, but maybe, just maybe, it could work.

Keeping my cardio fitness

It was important to keep my cardiovascular fitness while I couldn’t run, and the typical advice was to swim. The MSAC (Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre) was close to my house and had plenty of pools I could swim in.

So, I went swimming a few times, but it wasn’t working for me.

Freestyle swimming put my foot in positions that aggravated my injury. I tried breaststroke swimming, but as hard as I tried, I just couldn’t get my heart rate to go up high enough to feel anything.

Then I found out about water running.

It involves going into a deep pool with a floatation belt that makes you float upright, with your legs immersed in water – kind of like a kid with a lifesaver on.

The idea is to move your legs in the same way you would running. You get to train your running muscles with zero landing impact. The water provides resistance making it an even better exercise.

If water running sounds awesome, just know it isn’t. It’s lame.

No one chooses to do water running – it’s usually the only option. As I went training at the MSAC’s deep-water pool, I saw only frail elderly people or other injured runners doing it.

When floating upright immersed in water, the pushing movements you make with your legs don’t move you at all. This was a sharp contract to the wonderful feeling of the world flying by I got with outdoors running.

However, going really hard definitely increased the heart rate, worked the right muscle and improved muscle memory.

So, during this period, I was regularly in the deep water pool, literally treading water.

Looking at the big clock by the pool I would go – 4 minutes of treading lightly, then 2 minutes of sprinting, then 4 minutes of treading followed by another 2 minutes of sprinting – repeated ad nauseam until the end of the session.

While sprinting, I wanted to remind myself to push through this boring stationery exercise. I kept muttering “Melbourne Marathon” to myself repeatedly.

When I flew to Brisbane to hold a workshop, I got permission from my friend Dave to use the pool in his building complex.

There I was, floating with my lame belt in this tiny pool.

My feet were touching the floor, so I couldn’t do proper water running. Instead, I decided to put my feet in front of me, paddling an imaginary water bicycle. I kept chanting “Melbourne Marathon” to keep the intensity while sprinting.

A neighbor walked by, made eye contact and furrowed his eyebrows, trying to decipher what exactly he was looking at.

I guess that to him, I seemed deranged.

There I was, a grown man he’s never seen before, floating about in his pool, wearing a lifesaver, talking to myself and paddling an invisible bike.

But hey, I didn’t give a fuck. If that’s what it took to run the Marathon, that’s what I had to do.

Keeping off my feet

The motion that was creating and exacerbating the inflammation was the downward flexing of my feet at the ankle. I kept my foot rigid at 90 degrees when I walked to not bend at the ankle at all.

One of the most popular services I was doing with my coaching students back then, was to walk around the city during daytime and help them approach women in day-to-day situations, like in cafés, tram stops, bookstores and so on.

A regular session saw me on my feet for 4 to 6 hours, and definitely aggravated my injury. I had to cancel all of those sessions.

I was doing a round of prescheduled public talks aimed at raising money for charity (using “sponsor me for the Marathon” as the excuse). I didn’t cancel those, but I did a lot of the talks leaning on a table or sitting a chair.

The fact that I had raised over $2000 for charity kept reminding me of my commitment to run.

I figured, worst case, I’d change courses and walk the 10km event. But I still really wanted to run the Marathon.

I kept icing my ankle and taking anti-inflammatory tablets. Many days I’ve spent lying in bed, keeping off my feet and waiting to get better.

In the span of a few weeks, I was walking normally without hobbling, and could go up and down stairs. I was still not ready to run at all.

It was a month to go till the Marathon.

I met up with my physio again to ask him to reassess my situation. Would I get the green light to run if the inflammation goes away in time?

He was worried I might create long-term damage, and referred me to a sports doctor who he thought highly of.

Sports Doctor

A week later, sitting in this sports doctor’s waiting room I realized – this guy is a hotshot!

The walls were adorned with signed season posters of national AFL (Australian Football) teams, thanking him for the work he had done. Next to them hung framed letters by Olympic athletes, expressing similar sentiments. I was in good hands.

Before going into the meeting, I had my foot x-rayed.

The doctor looked at the x-rays and checked the injured spot by touch.

“There’s not structural damage at all. The foot is just inflamed and needs time to heal.”

“I want to run the Melbourne Marathon, Doctor. It’s in 4 weeks. Is there anything you could do to make the inflammation go away?”

“Yes. There’s cortisone. That’s exactly what it does. If I inject it to the area, the swelling will subside completely in about a week.”

Perfect! I thought. There’s no long-term damage, and this guy has the cure for the inflammation… It can go away in a few days!

I hadn’t run in over a month now and was feeling nervous – would I still be able to run at all? I could already see myself going for a long run that weekend and catching up on my training plan just in time for the Marathon.

“Doctor, that sounds perfect! Let’s do it. Can you inject me with Cortisone today?”

“It’s not that simple. The cortisone might make the swelling go away, but it doesn’t fix the underlying issue. I want to give the body more time to heal itself, as much as I can before the Marathon.”

Oh.

“How long, Doctor?”

“I prefer we do it as late as possible. Two weeks from now. You’ll have a week to train before the Marathon.”

A week of training before the Marathon didn’t sound like a lot, but this doctor sounded optimistic. I made an appointment.

Gimme that Cortisone

Two weeks later, 12 days before the Marathon took place, it was injection time.

The doctor was busy and there wasn’t much time for pleasantries. He injected me twice around the injured area of my ankle.

“The pain and inflammation will go away in a two or three days. Wait a week before you go running.”

The doctor was right. The inflammation started subsiding and with it, all the pain. In 3 days, I didn’t feel a thing. It was amazing to have this debilitating pain gone.

On Sunday, after finishing an extra-long, 1.5-hour session of water running, I left the aquatic center and started driving back home. I drove next to Albert Park Lake on the way. In two days I’d be able to go run again.

But I really felt ready. I was busting to go.

It was cold and had just rained, but I didn’t care. I parked the car and took off my shoes.

I didn’t have my running shoes with me because I hadn’t planned to run… But I had done many barefoot training runs on Albert Park’s low-impact grassy areas before. I felt confident.

And so, I found myself about to start a spontaneous barefoot run on the grass around the lake.

Ever since the injury, running even 20 seconds would aggravate my foot. But after 20 seconds nothing was happening. I kept running. 30 seconds. 40 seconds.

Stomping wet grass, step after step after step, I realized the Cortisone worked. Running again felt amazing. I hadn’t moved at this speed for a month and I missed it dearly.

All those emotions that I kept inside, hope and uncertainty, passion and fear erupted with a laugh and tears of joy.

“I’m going to run the Marathon!” I thought.

But I had no idea if my legs could take it.

Was I ready to run?

The Marathon was only a week away and I just had my first run in almost 2 months. As I pored over the facts, I was really nervous.

Including the impromptu barefoot run and 2 more short runs, I’ve run a total of 8km in the week since the injection. That meant a total of 8km in the 2 months before the race.

Following my training program, I was supposed to have run hundreds of kilometers in those 2 months, inoculating my legs from the impact of running a Marathon distance.

My Marathon-savvy friend said that my legs were strong enough, but were they really?

No one could say for sure.

Then, there was the distance. The longest I had run in training was 25km, and that was 2 months before. Now I was about to run a monstrous 42.2km. Yikes.

I decided that the most important thing was to not create any long term damage. If my foot hurt at all during the race, I would stop running.

Assuming no foot pain, the second most important thing was to try and make it to the finish line – running, walking or crawling.

In the few days before the race, I prepared.

I ate a ton of carbs to keep my engine full.

I had all my running gear ready – clothes, socks, shoes, hat. Check.

I packed dates (the fruit) separately for the energy boosts I’d need during the race. Check.

I had my running watch and I had loaded my iPhone with a few pre-prepared running playlists. Check, check.

I was as ready as I’d ever be.

Yet still, on the night before the Marathon, I could hardly fall asleep.

Running the Marathon

At 5am on the 10/10/10, I woke up. I put on my running clothes and along with some friends, I headed to the starting line in Melbourne’s iconic MCG stadium.

I saw the sun rise over the Yarra river. The weather was perfect for a Marathon – the sky was grey and there was no wind or rain.

By 6:30am I was there on the starting line, doing my final stretches. Starting time was 7am.

The air was buzzing with pent-up anticipation.

The energy just before a Marathon is hard to explain.

Here we were, 4500 people. Each of us had put incredible amounts of training to be there that day.

Everyone had his or her reasons to run the Marathon. For many of us, it was an extremely important moment. And, for many of us, it would be the first time to run a Marathon distance.

At 7am the PA system announced the race had begun. Beyond the starting line ahead of me, I could see a sea of people ahead picking up pace, heads bobbing up and down as they settled into a running rhythm.

As I crossed the starting line, I started my stopwatch.

I sank into a steady moderate running pace – much slower than I was used to in my long runs. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t putting my feet through too much. I had no idea how much impact they could take.

For the first hour or so of running, people kept overtaking me. I ended up running next to an old timer who had run the every single Melbourne Marathon since 1978 but one. We had a nice chat.

The course snaked through some of my favorite places in Melbourne. I ran down St Kilda road, next to Albert Park Lake, by the beach, and then back to the MCG stadium to the finish line.

That Sunday, for a few hours, the city of Melbourne stopped for us. All the major traffic arteries blocked to allow room for the runners. I felt so happy to be part of it all.

At about 32km I realized there was absolutely no pain in my foot at all. I could probably pick up the pace.

I tried and tried. I ate extra dates for an energy boost, and munched on the chocolates the volunteers on the side of the road handed out. I just couldn’t keep running faster for more than a minute at a time. There was no fuel in the tank.

When I got to the last kilometer, I put on my victory song, the one I listened to so many times at the end of training runs.

From out of nowhere, after almost an hour of trying to find the extra energy in sugar, I was potently charged.

In the last kilometer, when people were completely out of energy, I sprinted to the finish line. I wasn’t quick, but it was quicker than everyone around me. I felt like I was flying.

I entered the stadium with my song playing in my ears, just like I visualized.

And then I ran past the finish line. It took a little about 5 hours, 4 minutes and 18 seconds, but I made it.

Aftermath

Running The Melbourne Marathon came after a long string of failures – not just in running.

I set many goals but didn’t stay the course.

I had no real plan, no real commitment.

My execution was half-assed.

I lost my discipline.

I gave up on my goals when they became too uncomfortable to pursue.

Always before a believer in my own potential, I started believing that I didn’t have the grit it took to achieve something worthwhile.

Every time, after committing to a new goal, the first thought that went through my mind was: “You can’t do it.”

As I gave up on goal after goal not long after committing to them, that initial thought was proven right.

Running the Melbourne Marathon changed that, and not in the way I expected.

I thought crossing the finish line would feel amazing, but it felt more like the relief of ticking off an item from a to-do list.

I remember feeling confused and thinking “Is this it?”

It was a huge anti climax.

However, it was also the culmination of the my efforts that year. Those efforts which – one after the other – proved me wrong. I was capable of a lot more than I had thought.

The biggest gift I got from running the Marathon was a reference experience of sticking through with a goal and seeing it to fruition.

With it came a subtle, almost imperceptible newfound belief in myself.

3 months after crossing the finish line, I decided to devote myself to freeing myself financially.

It was a huge task full of uncertainty and improbability. I didn’t even know where to start.

I knew I would have to work hard. I would have to deal with constant failure. I would have to take risks without ever knowing whether I would make it or not.

This was the kind of goal that I was used to giving up on.

But this time, the first thought that came in my mind resonated loud and clear.

“You know you can do it.”