Before I found Melissa, I caught up with my buddy Jeff who finished a few minutes before me. He looked like I felt. Totally spent, just wanting to go home. He was on the same quest I was. He was looking for his wife. There was a cell phone company there offering runners free calls. We called our wives a bunch of times on their cell phones but the were still near the finish line looking for Jeff to cross the finish line. The finish lines at these types of races are very loud so they did not hear their phones ringing. Somehow they had missed Jeff coming across the line. These things to happen. It happened to me earlier this year at the Richmond 8K. I missed my Melissa coming across the finish line.
We finally did hook up with our wives. We said our goodbyes and headed for the car. There was one big problem though. Our car was parked at the top of sizable hill several blocks away. I was so sore and so out of gas that I was having trouble going up the hill. Actually even before that, I was having trouble lifting my leg to go up the curb. I had to use all my strength to swing my leg and even use my arms to help lift up my foot onto the curb. And then I remembered something I had heard a lot time ago and I decided to turn around and walk backwards up the hill. I could barely move forward but, backwards, I could do pretty well. So I walked backwards up the hill to the car.
Melissa drove me home where I took a hot shower and crawled into bed. I was tired and cold and while hungry could not eat. After warming up in the bed, I was able to eat some snacks. After about an hour or two, I started feeling much better and was relatively back to normal. Sure I could barely go up and down the stairs but I started feeling normal in the rest of my body. I now felt like doing something other than lying in the warm bed and was gearing up for dinner.
Before going to dinner, Melissa and I went to Poor Farm Park to go for a walk. Going for a walk later in the day after completing a marathon is highly recommended. So we went for a walk in one of my favorite parks. Before heading into the woods, I tried to take a couple of strides to see how it would feel. There is one word to describe how those strides felt-bad. In particular, my right knee hurt pretty bad when I tried to jog a few steps. I did not like the feel of that and it was odd that I did not notice the knee aching during those last few steps of the marathon. My quads and my IT band were definitely screaming at the end of the race but my knees did hurt. Or maybe I just did not realize it because of the adrenaline pumping through my body.
As it turns out, I would not be running for quite a while because of this knee pain. In my next installment I will tell you more about my recovery.
2 comments:
My first impression is that a recovery that is as difficult as you describe means one of two things: either the overall race is just too much for your body OR your training was insufficient. It just seems that if it hurts that bad, something is not right!
It’s a wonder you finished at all. It will be interesting to see if you run it again in a year or so.
That is a very good observation. My training was insufficient I think. Not how much but the quality and type of training was not good enough. I think my body can handle the marathon and beyond. I am going to approach 2010 with a new strategy that I will ellaborate on in future installments. Thanks.
Post a Comment