Chevron Marathon 2024-After
Heading into this race, I was feeling very optimistic…right up until the Friday before the Sunday marathon. As many of us have experienced, of course something went wrong, lol. I woke up Friday with pain in my lower back, but I figured it was still 48 hours until the race, I’ll stretch and see what we can do. During the fall I was a volunteer coach with one of the local middle schools for students participating in the We Run Houston program. It’s a fantastic program that gives youth from around the metro the opportunity to participate in the 5k on Saturday preceding the marathon. Saturday I woke up and my back still creating significant issues for me, but I figured I’d see how it felt running during the 5k. I ran pain free! In my mind, that was perfect. Even if it hurt to bend over and tie my shoes, as long as it didn’t hurt to run, I would be fine!
Sunday morning I woke up still in pain, but with the knowledge that it didn’t hurt to run. I got to the convention center around 5:15 so that I was parked and ready to go before street closures began taking effect. After many stops in the bathroom it was time to drop off my gear check bag, make another bathroom run, and then head to the coral. I started in coral C this year, and was hoping to run somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30. If everything was perfect, I was hoping for a 4:59:59, but the main goal was to shave some time off my 5:45 PR. I ran into a friend on the way to the coral, but I was running solo for the race.
Miles 1-12
These miles felt pretty amazing and generally flew by. My coach and I had a plan that would hopefully have me finishing somewhere in the 5 hour mark with room to spare before cutoffs and hopefully setting a new PR! In the first 11 miles everything was going according to plan and I was generally enjoying the run quite a lot! My pace felt relatively easy and I had a good time looking around at the cheering crowd and signs and seeing other runners, some of whom I knew and some of whom I didn’t, but everyone tackling the same goals!
In mile 12 I started feeling some back pain coming into play. It got progressively worse right at the point in which I was trying to pick up the pace and head toward the PR goal.
Miles 13-26
Starting in mile 13 the pain is setting into my back, and I began considering shifting from the race plan I had with my coach to a run walk plan that would hopefully get me to the finish line. In mile 14 I shifted and the goal became to finish the race under cutoff’s. Houston has a 6 hour cutoff time from the time the last person starts. In 2019 due to some GI issues I fell behind and ended up right in front of the sweeper. I wasn’t gonna let that happen this year. I knew I had some buffer time between me and the sweeper because I was in coral C, but that 2019 DNF was heavy on my mind in the second half of the run. The plus side to being on the backside of the course was that in spite of my back pain, it was new territory to me. I DNF’d in 2019 right around the 13 miles, so even though it hurt, it was fun seeing a new portion of the course.
As I continued I noticed that the back pain was having an affect on my stride and that I was developing some other issues as a result, but I kept going forward. I spent a fair amount of time in the back half of the race trying to take energy from the spectators when I saw them, and the other portion of time focusing on the audio book I was listening to, and trying to ignore the cues my body was giving me to quit. My right knee was hurting by mile 18, I would assume due to compensation from tightness in the back and everything was hurting, but doing the runner math, I knew I would finish.
I crossed the finish time with an official time of 5 hours, 46 minutes and change. It wasn’t the day I was planning for. I’m not sure any race is truly the day you plan for, but it was the day I had and I felt so proud of myself for making it to the finish in spite of a “bad” history with the race and a “bad” day with my back. I weigh over 250 pounds currently. When I toe the line at a race, I know I’m not going out for the win, or to even likely be in the top 50% of my age group. I race to celebrate a love of running. To celebrate the training that takes place year round and to work with other runners toward the same goal, on the same day and the same streets as the professionals.
I think too often we define a run, or a runner, by their pace or their PR or any other number of factors. The pace that I ran may seem slow to some, and impossibly fast to others, but the pace doesn’t matter. The struggle does. The effort does. I don’t know who will read this or where you are in your journey, but celebrate the struggle. Celebrate the fight to cross the finish line, whether you’re first, last or somewhere in between. You are a runner!
