My Marathon Experience

Image from Unsplash

Sometime in 2023, I think in the summer, I was standing at my desk at work and felt a pain in my leg.  This was a concern for me because I have had a history of clotting issues.  The second time I had a blood clot was what led to me being medically retired from the U.S. Army.  When my leg pain persisted enough, and brought back memories of the clot that took me out of the Army, I went to the Emergency Room after work to get ultrasounds on my legs to make sure that I didn’t have any clotting.

When I was being admitted, I remember hearing the person admitting me call out my weight of 210 pounds.  This was the heaviest I have ever been, and was a real wakeup call for me.  Gratefully, I didn’t have any clotting and the pain was coming from me not doing a good balance of sitting and standing while at work.  I rationalized with myself that the high weight was due to being on the scale fully clothed and wearing shoes.  But, the number was the same when I removed those elements and stepped on my bathroom scale.

Looking at that number I realized that I knew from whence it came.  It was the culmination of months of being depressed at my job and attempting to mask it by eating copious amounts of potato chips and store-bought cookies in my car during breaks, and not having the drive to wake up early enough in the morning to exercise.  I knew that I needed to make changes in my life.  I had lost weight before, but this time around I realized that I needed to do something different and decided to instead focus on changing my lifestyle and routines.

Possibly the biggest change I needed to make was avoiding processed food.  Instead of chips and cookies, I started avoiding snacking altogether but if I did have a snack it was usually either some nuts or an apple with peanut butter.  The other important thing I did was get into the routine of waking up early and exercising.  I chose to run on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and was very humbled when I started getting back into the routine.  I think the first distance I ran was 4 miles, and I remember struggling to complete it.  Shortly before I reach the final mile of my route, there is an inclined stretch of sidewalk.  I remember feeling like I was going to collapse as I tried to get up that incline.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I would do DDP Yoga, a form of Yoga developed by former pro wrestler Diamond Dallas Page that uses body weight exercises to improve cardiovascular health, flexibility, and physical strength, for an hour.  Focusing on changing my lifestyle, weight loss followed.  Consistency was key, and I was able to do that to the point that I eventually got my weight down to 189 pounds.

At the end of the year, my family and I traveled to the Salt Lake City area to take part in a surprise 50th anniversary celebration for my Uncle Pat and Aunt Linda.  Before the guests of honor arrived, I chatted with a couple of my cousins.  They commented that I was looking fit and asked about my exercise routine.  With a bit of pride, I told them about my lifestyle changes and how I had gotten up to doing 10 mile runs three times a week.  They asked if I was going to do anything with that, meaning if I was going to participate in some kind of fitness event.  At that point, I wondered if I wanted to do something with my new lifestyle beyond living more comfortably.

I was in a great place physically and mentally, and I also knew that at 41 years of age I wasn’t getting any younger, so I thought that I would like to do something big.  Thinking about what I would like to do, I thought of something that my Dad and two of my brothers had done before, and that I couldn’t have imagined doing in the months before that hospital visit.

I decided that I was going to run a marathon, specifically the St. George Marathon.  I went to the St. George city website and found out when registration opened.  Like someone waiting to purchase tickets to an event online, I waited for the time to tick down and registered as soon as I could.  I later got an email that confirmed I was in, and got to work.

My younger brother had run the Kansas City Marathon with his wife over a decade ago, so I asked him what he used for training and he recommended a specific book that he had used to prepare.  I acquired a copy and went through it, focusing on the training program and schedule.  Each week consisted of five runs, including a longer distance run on Saturdays, and listed a weekly total of miles.

I continued with my ten mile runs three times a week until the weekly total exceeded 30 miles, at that point I would add a fourth run during the week and started doing the Saturday runs as well with a DDP Yoga workout during the week.  The distances increased week by week, with the longest run I completed being 20 miles, double what I had been running regularly and by far the farthest distance I had ever run in  my life.

The day before the marathon, there was an expo event in St. George.  I had received an email telling me about the event and that I needed to go there to confirm my personal information and get my number and other things that I would need.  I remember going to the expo and thinking it was neat to see so many people gathered together who were getting ready to do the same thing that I was going to do, and couldn’t help but wonder if any of their stories leading up to the event were similar to my own.

After doing what I needed to and getting the bag with my number and other things, I walked around for a little while looking at some of the souvenirs.  I wanted to get a t-shirt but couldn’t find anything in my size.  As I walked around taking in the environment, I couldn’t help but feel a little anxious about the next day and feeling that this was going to be my only opportunity to do something like this.  I did not want something to happen that would not enable me to complete the marathon and miss that one chance to complete the event.  I was anxious, but also well aware that I had prepared for the event and knew that I was capable of completing it.  That night, I had a delicious Spaghetti and meat sauce dinner with my family and went to bed early.

The next morning was an early start, I don’t remember what time I woke up but I’m pretty sure it was during the 4:00 hour.  I woke up and got into the clothes I had laid out for the occasion, including a U.S. Army t-shirt that I had been given when I reenlisted for active duty, then drank a glass of water with electrolyte powder and drove off to St. George.  The drive was relaxing, I find that getting there is all the fun because once you arrive it’s time to get down to business.

When I got to the bus site I remember having to drive around for a while to find a parking spot and then needing to walk around that area to find my stop.  I then remember getting on a bus, making sure that it was going to the full marathon and not the half, and settling in for the trip.  During my time at Paratrooper School in the Army I remember realizing during the plane ride before my first jump that I wasn’t walking off the plane.  I remember a similar feeling of knowing that I would soon be running the length of the journey I was taking by bus.

When we got to what would be the starting point of the marathon, my fellow riders and I disembarked.  I had no idea what I might find and was relieved to arrive as, once I figured out what to do with my bag, all I had to worry about was starting the marathon.  It was an early October morning, so the air was a bit chilly, but I am blessed with the ability to endure cold temperatures for a while at a time.  The campfires that were set up around the staging area also helped.

I got to the staging area a little while before the marathon was going to begin and warmed up by walking around and doing some of my DDP Yoga stretches.  There were tables set up with water and fruit, but I was hesitant to drink anything because I didn’t want to have to stop to use the bathroom during the marathon.  However, I also didn’t want to get dehydrated during the event because if I did then I would need to drink something, and if I try to drink while moving, especially running, I get bad stomach cramps and need to stop to let my gut recover.

My goal in the staging area was to make sure that I cleansed my system before the start of the marathon, which I was able to do at one of the port-o-johns that was set up.  I had a drink of water a while before the event was to start in the hope that I wouldn’t have to drink during the run.  Eventually, it was time for the marathon to begin.  An announcement was made over a PA system and the runners lined up on the road in groups organized by the estimated time they would take to complete the marathon.

We were then treated to a kind of aerial light show courtesy of some illuminated drones that spelled out “26.2” and offered some encouraging messages.  Then the time came to begin, and as it got to the point where I was able to begin in earnest I pushed play on my iPod Nano (yes, I am aware that I am old) to start my specialized Running Playlist and got moving forward as Led Zeppelin’s “Trampled Underfoot” echoed in my head.

The St. George Marathon starts in a rural part of the area outside of the city at an elevation a little ways above it.  The majority of the course winds through roads nestled inside a network of canyons surrounded by gorgeous red rock cliffs and mountains reminiscent of the scenes in “Forrest Gump” when he is running through a mountain desert area and comments that during the sunrise he couldn’t tell “...where Heaven started and Earth began, it was so beautiful”.

I had a minor setback after 2 or 3 miles when the drink of water I had had in the staging area proved to be ill advised, necessitating my needing to take a quick leak at a port-o-john.  After that, it was onward and upward.  There were terrific volunteers along the route offering drinks and motivation, but for me every mile I completed was another barrier broken and gave me all the encouragement that I needed.

I maintained my 9 minute mile pace for 22 miles, until I hit a snag.  I will sometimes take what I call a stutter step when running, usually this is a break in my stride when I kick a rock or come across uneven terrain, and when I do the stutter step I move forward.  Some time after the 22 mile point in the marathon, I took a stutter step but moved sideways.  My brain told me that I was dehydrated and that I was not going to make it to the end of the marathon without collapsing unless I hydrated.  I started doing this, and sure enough I got stomach cramps that hobbled me.  I had to slow down to a walk a few times, but I am proud to say that I never stopped moving forward.

I kept on moving forward, and I remember thinking that I was almost to the end when the route got into the St. George metro area.  I remember the route going around the city area and the feeling I got as I turned a corner and could see the finish line ahead of me.  Once the finish was in sight, I couldn’t help but think of where I had been about a year before that and all that I had done to get to the point where I now found myself.  I was determined to finish strong, and did the best sprint that I could manage to the finish line.  I remember hearing someone announce my name as finishing and knew that I had done it, I had completed the marathon.

I slowed down to a walk and remember deliberately slowing down a little more to take full advantage of a nearby misting station.  A volunteer presented me with a medal designating me as an official finisher of the 2024 St. George Marathon shortly thereafter.  I walked around the grounds of the finish area downing a bottle of water before getting my bag back and sharing my success with my family.  I sat down for a bit in a shady spot, relishing the feeling of triumph.

The legend of the Marathon race goes back to 490 B.C. in ancient Greece when a vastly outnumbered force of Greek soldiers defeated an invading force of the Persian Empire at the Battle of Marathon.  The legend is that after the triumph of the Greeks, a messenger named Pheidippides was tasked with informing the government in Athens of their victory and that he ran the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens.  Upon arriving, Pheidippides is said to have loudly proclaimed “Rejoice, we conquer!” before dropping dead from exhaustion.  I shared a message consisting of the message given by Pheidippides accompanied by a selfie with me holding my medal.  I had conquered!

After a period of cooling off and trying to walk off what I had just done, I returned to my car and went to keep a promise I had made to myself after my registration for the marathon was confirmed.  I went to a restaurant called Freddy’s and had a Steakburger and a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Concrete.  Freddy’s is a fine restaurant but not the best burger I have ever had, but at that moment it rivaled any food I’ve ever had.

I made it home at about 2:00 that afternoon and greeted my family in triumph.  I then took a shower and changed into some comfortable clothes before settling down into a recliner that my wife had mercifully placed in the path of the ceiling fan that she made sure was turned on.  That Saturday was the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which my wife and I are active members, so the rest of the day was spent listening to the sessions and attempting to replace the astronomical amount of calories that I had burned that day.

Completing the St. George Marathon is the single greatest physical achievement of my life.  It ended up taking me four and a half hours to run 26.2 miles, and while I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to maintain a nine minute mile pace the entire time, I figure that for my first marathon and at 42 years of age I did pretty dang good.

That day, I did something that few people ever do in a lifetime, and if  I ever do another event like that I think the longest distance I will ever run is a half marathon.  But, no matter what else happens in my life or how low I might feel, I will always be able to say “I ran a full marathon”.