Officially Insane :)

Its done. I have run and finished a marathon. I flew to Italy to accomplish this feat. I say that it was worth it. I think that I was more nervous about missing my flight than actually running. There is a huge sense of camaraderie at the race, no matter who you are, who it is thats wishing you good luck, in what language it is being done, its a great feeling. I was lucky enough to meet some great people throughout the run. In the beginning it was my pacer group, since we were all part of the "My First Marathon" package, it gave us a reason to be bunched together and share our woes about the race. There was one guy who runs Ultra trail races of 50km or more, standing there biting his nails and telling me he was nervous. There was another woman from Finland who is at least my moms age but will be running another marathon soon. She had the same crazy Nike running shoes that I did, in the magenta bright pink. She was so happy that someone else had them since they do seem to be the least high-tech shoes out there compared to all the real high-tech gear that everyone else had. I, too was relieved. As the we lined up and got to talking, everyone was so surprised that I said I was from America, but when I told them that I flew from Israel they were like, yeah that makes sense. Then they would proceed to tell me how lucky I am to be on vacation now and how they get to run today but have to be alive to go back to work tomorrow. I really like listening and (more so) watching Italians speak, even though I understand only one or 2 words that come out of their mouths, I get the idea of what they are saying by their gestures.

As a true Runners World junkie, I had all the to-do's down pat. I set up all my gear for the race the second I got to the hotel to make sure that nothing was missing, the night before the race I did a chceck to make sure it would all be working the next day. I had my breakfast out, my shirt and bib number (F1293) set up, my fuel for the race (Jelly Belly sport beans and my Kidz Clif Bars), at least 2 alarms set up for the morning. I ate my breakfast and got to the transfer bus on time, I knew to go to the bathroom when the lines weren't that long and I wouldn't be stuck right as we were lining up. With all this planning and being so ready, it turned out, my pit stop was way too early... When we were lining up to start, I had to pee soooo badly! But I decided to wait until we began running. Bad idea. 45 minutes later, when we actually did start running, I could hardly move, thats how full my bladder was. So with another few women, as we went passed the starting point, we all made a dash for the port-a-potties, found one that was unlocked, went to the bathroom as fast as possible and made a dash back to the pack. Needless to say, I started last. There was no one running behind me. I thanked my fast twitch muscles tho, who got me all the way back to the 4:45hr pacing area with the help of Fiona, the woman who went to the toilet before me and who was also aiming for the 4:30 pacers. We made it all the way to the 8km point together, but I let her get ahead of me since I was trying to keep my energy more than expend it, considering we sprinted the first 5km (with the estimated 7 min for the whole pit stop, I made the distance in 22 minutes...!) Fiona was running her second marathon, the first being in Edinborough with another 30,000 participants, last year. She has a friend who was supposed to run with her but who was injured right before the race, so she was running for her 3 friends waiting at the finish line. I hope that she made it thru the rest of the race well.

As the kilometers kept on flying by, I was really happy not to be counting in miles... Every 5km there was a water station and every 8 or so they had sponging stations. At first I had no idea why I had 2 sponges in my race bag and was told to make sure I had them while we were running. I had never encountered them before but the instructions said that they were for sanitary reasons. At a certain point they turned out to be really refreshing when I wanted to wash the sweat off my face. After the half way point they started offerring Powerade and food at each "fuel" station. The clementine wedges really got me thru each 5km after that. At one point I had either caught up or slowed down (I'm not really sure anymore) to these 2 guys who were running together in matching outfits and we would keep passing each other, either they would pass me or I would pass them. This usually happened when we came upon the uphill parts to the race. There weren't that many and they weren't steep at all, but this is where I attributed my training in Jerusalem to beating everyone up the hills to. When I would see a hill coming, I would slow down a bit right before we hit the hill and then sprint up to the otherside and get back into my running/walking pace. This is where everyone else around me would be walking up the hill and staring at me like I had 3 heads for having the energy to spring the up hill. The truth was, I found the hills so much easier than the flat parts, I could see the end and that motivated me to go quicker. On the flat ground, there was no end, it just kept going and going and going (like the energizer bunny)...

Almost everyone along the way had headphones with them and there were certain times during the run that I was happy I had brought my nano along and had it tuned to my classic rock playlist, but most of the time I wasn't really using it. Since we started at least 37km outside of Venice, we had all these little towns to run thru and in each town's main street (picture one block with maybe 5 stores - something even smaller than Raritan Ave and our million ice cream stores and hairdresser/nail salons), there were bands set up. The first one we came across was when I was running with Fiona, I was like - hey! they're playing The Rolling Stones! - it was very exciting. There was some other guy singing U2 and Bob Marley, you had Sting and the Police. The best was the Kiss cover band singing in the whole get-up of white faces and black make-up, around kilometer 32. By the time I got to kilometer 30, I was like, hey there's only 12 more km to go, I can do that and I did. My dad asked me what I was thinking about as I was running, since it is a great time to reflect and I know that alot of people do. I over heard this guy, who finished in 3 hrs flat, saying to his friend that at a certain point he just had to stop and started bawling on the side of the bridge. I don't know what it was that was going through his mind at the time, but it must have been powerful. In retrospect, I'm sure that there was a lot I could have been reflecting on, it being 5 hrs and the end of my first quarter of a century in this world, but that was not the case. The whole time I was running, the one thing that was going thru my mind was: "What the hell have I gotten myself into..." When I hit the 1/2 mark I was ready for the race to be over, I had had enough and I guess I didn't think that I needed to prove anything to anyone but to myself, that indeed I could finish the distance and that that's all I was there for and at some point I said to myself and next time I will do better. There will be a next time, in a different foriegn country and I will be training a bit differently and hopefully injury free and make it in less time. I guess that means that this is not the end to the blog (!!) there will be more to come.
Now the bridge that goes from Mestre to Venice is 3km long, all flat. It was the longest 3 km I have ever run. I thought it would never end. At the end tho, there was a nice uphill bridge that took us to the 13 bridges that had been installed so that we could have a fairly straight route to the end of the race thru St. Marco's Square. Before I made it to the longest bridge I came across this girl, who I had seen here and there while I was running (I think she was the only other person running that was near my age, everyone else was sooo much older), who was walking and crying. There was another women trying to comfort her and encourage her to keep on going but the girl (I never got her name, unfortunately) had just run the Berlin Marathon the month before and had thought that she could handle another marathon so soon but her body was telling her otherwise, her quads were totally cramping up and she could hardly bend her knees and she thought that she was going to puke. So I slowed down as well to see if I could help in anyway, fortunately, earlier in the run I hadn't listened to my parents' preachings and had taken candy from a stranger and put it in my pocket. It looked like a mint and I figured that if other people were taking it, I would take it and probably end up throwing it out later on in the day. I gave it to her and as she was eating it, I told her where I had gotten it from and we then speculated about it being crystal-meth and how she hoped that it was... In the end it seemed to help her nausea, so maybe it was crystal-meth. Along the bridge we ran and walked a bit together but I lost her when we got to the end and I sprinted up the bridge as she continued to waddle on. Once we got into Venice I really got some of my adrenalin back, it was exciting, there were only 5 km left, I would be done soon. Then came the signs: "13 bridges to go!" yay! Which is really the truth since that was the easiest part for me. I didn't sprint the last 5km like I sprinted the first 5 but I ran pretty much all of it, except for the times that I stopped to take pictures of the signs saying how many bridges were left, or of the spectators around us cheering us on, or of the sites, since I really didn't have much time to actually tour Venice. At the bottom of the last bridge I made a dash for the finish line and I have to say, it was very emotional to actually be done, to know that I had really accomplished this huge feat. I RAN A MARATHON! was what was going thru my mind as I was finishing, thats what the hell I was getting myself into.

I had gotten my mom a seat in the spectator stands so that she could see the finish easily. It wasn't hard to spot her in my Nike hat and her white hair. She saw me right away and I heard her screaming, "Rachel! You did it!" It was over and I was ready for it to be over. Once we found each other at the end and I got something to drink and I got my finisher's medal (its really heavy, btw), there were massage tables set up with therapists and this long line of sweaty people waiting for massages. Right next to them there was this electrode station where they set up this machine of 4 patches that pump electrodes into your muscles and vibrate them for 20 minutes so that they loosen up and the blood flows better. It was a little weird but it worked. I'm just sorry we couldn't stay long enough for them to do my whole body. For 2 days after I couldn't fully extend my back it was too sore and it wasn't that pleasant walking up and down stairs. I think I did ok and recovered fairly well. I only need to take a nap the day after the marathon and all the other days that we were in Italy we walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. The pasta was amazing, I ate penne and pomodora sauce before and after the marathon and pretty much any chance I could get. I had gelato the last day that I was in Italy, just because I knew I would never live it down, had I not. I am really glad that I waited until the end of my trip to have some or else thats all I would have been eating the whole time, pistachio and coffee gelato.

Now that I am back and it has been a week since I ran the marathon, it feels like years ago, I will be taking it easy for this month running wise, I'll probably run once or twice a week outside and the rest of the time I'll cross and strength train back at the gym. I think that my next big race will be the Jerusalem Half Marathon in March, there is no way I am running a full marathon here, I may like hills better than flat ground but not 42km of hills, I'm not that insane.

Until next time...

Peace.