Oh the things I see…

“Never resting time, leads summer on, leads summer on…..”

What is it like to run a marathon…well…it’s unlike anything I have ever tried before. I have tried a few new things in 2008 that have been challenging both mentally and physically (Bikram Yoga for one). I hope these endeavors will help me reach my goals of better health and back to the body I had for years before hard partying became a habit. Beer’s wonderful, but I also miss being able to see my collarbones!

The plane for Alaska departed from Detroit at 7:35 p.m. on Thursday (the 19th). There were only two of us from Ann Arbor on the Michigan Team in Training team and the other guy had flown out with his family earlier to make a vacation out of the trip. So I showed up at the airport (with the help of my awesome and amazing cousin Sean) and went to the gate to meet my team. I would say about 10 of us flew out together, all participating in different events. The Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon offered a run/walk Marathon and Half Marathon.

6 hours later…we’re flying over Alaska. I don’t care how many times I have seen mountains, they just never get old. Alaska is an absolutely beautiful piece of country…mountains, lakes, rivers, forests…I risked the nauseousness of staring down below because it was too beautiful to look away. Did I mention I have issues with motion sickness? haha

We landed around 10:30 p.m. Alaska time and were greeted with sunshine. I’ve read about the midnight sun, seen pictures of it, seen movies with it….but it is something else to experience. 3 a.m. in the morning and you would swear it was 3 in the afternoon if you didn’t know any better. The first night was uneventful. The lady who drove us to our hotel said to be careful as we gazed out the grimy bus windows at the mist hovering over the tops of the mountain – she came to Alaska 5 years ago and has never left. She was originally from Michigan.

At the hotel, we received our room assignments. I roomed with Lisa, a 26 year old architect from Commerce, MI and the cousin of some guys I went to high school with. We took up occupancy in room 312, pulled the shades tightly closed and promptly passed out.

Friday morning, we had breakfast and wandered down to the race expo to pick up our racing packets. Alaska is apparently known for its wildflowers, we passed a few rows on our way to the expo and on the grey morning they sure did pop. After receiving our race packets (I got bib #136), we quickly parted with a bunch of our cash at the various booths, petted a 3 week old husky puppy that stole my heart, got my picture taken with a moose and then made friends with Adam and Stephanie from the Grand Rapids team. This proved to be a very beneficial move for the entertainment purposes of the rest of my weekend.

After we exhausted the expo, we meandered downtown Anchorage. We went to an Ulu store…I am still not entirely sure what an Ulu was/is traditionally used for, I just know it is some kind of knife. We saw an amazing splash of flowers at the visitors center, touched some glacier ice and I went to exhibit on dog mushing with Stephanie. At 5 p.m. we went to the Team in Training pasta dinner.

It was something else to see all of the teams from all over the US and Canada there in one huge room. We heard a speech from a cancer survivor and also the guy who writes the column at the end of Runner’s World Magazine. It was incredibly moving to see and meet all of these people who had decided to do something to help others. If I had the words to describe the excitement and emotion in that room, I still don’t think I could do it justice.

My nerves built throughout the night. I was counting down the hours in my head. “In 12 hours you are going to be running a marathon.” “In 10 hours you have to get up and run a marathon.” As we painted our shirts back in the hotel…”Oh crap….you have to get up in 8 hours and run a marathon!” As I got in the elevator to go up to our room “Michelle you are an idiot…you have to run a marathon in 7.5 hours” and as I put on all of my race stuff, made sure my camera battery was charged, my inhalers were packed, my bib pinned on, my luna gummies and sports beans pinned to my shorts…”This is the dumbest thing you have ever done, you are going to die!”

Sleep was interesting the night before the race. I tossed. I turned. I tossed some more. They warned us this would happen, but I thought I would be fine. I am an idiot. All I could think about were the millions of miles I would be running the next morning. It wasn’t incredibly awful, I believe I pulled together a good 6 hours of sleep total…about average for me anyway. When my alarm went off, I hopped out of bed and assembled myself and went downstairs to meet everyone.

On the bus ride over, I laughed and joked around with Adam, Pam and Stephanie from the Grand Rapids team. This was Adam’s third marathon I think, Pam’s fifth and Stephanie’s first. Adam and Pam had time goals for themselves, Stephanie and I decided just to not die and finish. Steph assured me she was a pretty slow runner too…so we talked some strategy and decided to at least start together at the starting line and run the first couple miles together. We arrived at the starting line….a high school with mountains looming in the landscape behind it. A slight drizzle, which I welcomed, fell pretty steadily all morning.

We spent the next 45 minutes stretching, rubbing vaseline all over our bodies (chaffing is a bitch!), using the porta-potties multiple times and begging pain killers from other runners. By the time it came to get in line at the start, I was a pile of nerves and excitement. I was going to run a marathon! (I was of course trying to forget the end of the legend of the marathon’s birth where the man who ran it died at the end…minor details really).

The gun went bang and we were off….walking! For those that have not raced before, you wear a timing chip on your shoe lace. This chip is activated when you cross the pad under the starting line and records your time up til when your foot hits the pad at the finish line. This is how they keep accurate times of all the runners and also why some new racers freak out because they think the 2 minutes crawl to the starting line is effecting their time.

Once my foot hit the mat, we started jogging. I could tell instantly that Stephanie was a fibber and actually had a pretty good cruising pace. She hung back for a bit, but after a half mile I told her to go ahead, I was completely fine. She finished in 4 hours and 16 minutes I believe. Everyone has a different version of “slow” haha!

The first few miles suck. Everything is just a bit painful, I have to monitor my body, make sure I am not letting my calves get too tight. If my calves get tight and my feet go numb early, I would be screwed the rest of the 24 miles, so stretching and taking it easy the first few miles is a MUST for me. I learned a lot while “training” and the most beneficial item was how to listen to my body. I can’t be concerned about runners passing me, or think about the time I lose when I stretch. Stretching saves me in the end so I can run for an extended period of time.

The first stretch of our trip runs along the highway. I was less than thrilled. They had promised wilderness! moose! eagles! Instead we started on a bike path, but the rain and the mountains made me happy and I sucked it up. Around mile 3 I make my first friend, Megan from New Jersey. This is also her first marathon, her dad was diagnosed with Leukemia in December.

At mile 4 I stop and use the restroom to get the rest of the nervousness from my bladder and tell Megan good luck with the race and I hope her dad pulls through. Continuing on, around mile marker 5…I pair up with a mom of 2/teacher from Iowa. She is running at a great comfortable pace and we have fun chitchatting about what we fuel with while running, the weather and scenery and how I am at the age where all of my friends are either getting married or are having babies (she had to stop training with Team in Training 2 years ago when she became pregnant with her daughter, so now she was back finishing what she started. This was also her first marathon). We split up when she stopped to use the porta-potties around mile 6.

Mile 7 was awesome! My feet finally hit the dirt path and they had a water station with a live band and people dressed in 60′s costumes passing out Ultima (sports drink), water and pretzels. It was awesome getting pumped up just before we ran onto the tank trail.

The trail was great…it reminded me of running in Marquette. The rain had kept the dust down but had been light enough not to create mud (that would have SUCKED). Trees on both sides, over bridges that crossed rivers and mountains all around. BEAUTIFUL.

Just before mile 9 I joined up with an older woman from Florida, this was her third marathon. One of the Michigan coaches, Bruce, ran up to me around the water station and ran a couple hundred yards with me to see how I was holding up. I told him great, he gave me a high five and back peddled to help out other teammates. Our other Michigan staff member, Mary, was a little past mile 9 with her big moose hat on and cheered and encouraged me on as I ran into the crappiest part of the trail.

Huge. Gravel. Rocks. yuck! Constant balancing, running up and down hills…this part of the course was no picnic and what made this a challenging run. At mile 10 I stopped and stretched out for a couple minutes and walked part of the difficult trail. I met a guy from Alaska who was also walking, this was his first marathon. He had not trained at all, but had made a drunken bet with some buddies for $100 that he could finish. The entry fee for the race was $60 I believe….he was not a very smart dude, so I bid him farewell with a smile and a wave and slowly ran off.

Seeing mile 13, my heart skipped and I was elated! Half-way done! I joined up with Zoey from California for awhile, this was her first marathon, and we talked about how great it felt to have put that many miles behind us already. She was running at a bit of a slower pace than me, so I bid her good luck and continued on.

By the time my feet hit pavement around mile 14 I was stoked and my knees were throbbing. I don’t move incredibly fast when I run…I found it amusing when old people ran/walked past me. I found my niche around mile 15 when we entered into what must have been hiking paths. The dirt, the downhills…I was cruising. My philosophy was “If it feels good, go for it. When it doesn’t, walk.” I believe this is the time when my garmin forerunner (gps watch) clocked me on a 6:42 mile (sometimes I go fast **wink**)

My other philosophy (handed down from Katie Buck) was “Just Keep Breathing.”

Coming out of the woods, I was STARVING. I had been consuming my Luna Gummies and my sports beans, but I wanted pretzels. My body craved and yearned and would not stop demanding pretzels. It’s funny how your body knows what it needs. It’s also funny that right after mile 17 two race volunteers came walking down the course with a big bag of pretzels (thanks to the Big Guy there I think!). Pretzel sticks have never tasted so damn good in my entire life. Between mile 17 and 19 there were a lot of spectators as we ran along the road again. I wanted anything and everything people had to offer…Gatorade, pretzels, oranges, granola bars, twizzlers…it’s amazing all of the nutrients you lose as you run for that long, and putting it all back in is a MUST! If someone would have handed me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at that point, I probably would have kissed them (I am packing one in my race pack next time for sure).

Mile 20 was when things got really hard. I was at 4 hours and 30 minutes at mile 20…6.2 more to go. Cardio wise, i felt fantastic. I never felt overly winded, I was a well running machine. Physically…My calves and quads were threatening to cramp up. I stopped to stretch and drink fluids and wasn’t sure my legs were going to start again. 6 more miles….through some wooded parks and thank God for the spectators. Team in Training is an amazing AMAZING organization. People were yelling out “Go Michigan!” “Go Michelle!” “Keep it up Michelle!” “You’re doing awesome Michigan!” and that really pushed me on. When my legs hurt and I wanted to stop, that kept me moving forward.

Another awesome motivator was Martin from Maryland…a great old dude who kept a nice steady pace. I am a decent runner but a slow walker…starting around mile 15 and going all the way to the end, I would pass him while running and then he would catch me while I was walking. I’d come up behind him and say something like “Keep it up Martin from Maryland!” and when I would pass him he would say “I knew you’d be coming soon Michelle!”. It was great and didn’t let me get too far behind. (For the record, he finished ahead of me).

Mile 20 also was when I started noticing extreme chaffing. Now I know why lots of runners don’t wear underwear. YOWZA! Hopefully that will clear up here any day now lol…

I saw Mary around mile 21 and she snapped a picture of me doing a goofy little dance…I probably looked like a sweaty mess, but it was so worth every step. Bruce found me again around mile 22 or 23…I was so close to the end I could taste it…literally….I sweat a lot!

At mile 23, another walker I had been playing leap frog with since the beginning (Amy) told me her secret. This was her third time doing the Alaska marathon. The first year, she ran it. The second year, she walked it…and finished 20 minutes faster. Absolutely amazing.

At mile 24 I ran for a bit with an Anchorage local. This was not her first marathon, but her goal was to finish in under 6. I don’t think she made as she never passed me up, but I know she was close!

Mile 25….Insult Hill. The place where the marathon and half marathon course meet up. It’s vertical. It sucked. I walked up it. (I struggled about 10 steps up and said screw it).

At the top…only a mile to the finish line…you could hear the cheering. That last mile was excruciating. My knees throbbed, my thighs ached and my eyes were starting to get teary. I never cried because of the pain, I had a few tears fall because of the spectators on the side of the course. One woman had a sandwich billboard on, it said “Thank you runners for saving my life!” and as I ran by she said, “Thank you so much!”. That nearly broke my heart and I got choked up because I was thinking about all the physical pain I was in and it did not even remotely compare to the treatments the patients have to go through. When things are put into perspective like that, it is pretty easy to suck it up and carry on!

When I saw mile marker 26, right around the edge of the track, I almost started crying. I was finishing! I had just ran a marathon! Something I had never even considered before January…and there I was running towards the finish line.

When my feet hit the track, I felt like I had new legs. 150 yards to go and everyone is cheering, “Go Michigan!” “Keep it up Michelle!” and I’m pumping my fists in the air and when my feet hit that pad under the finish line my heart swelled up like when the Grinch lifts the sleigh over his head and saves Christmas!

Absolutely awesome.

When they handed me my finishers medal, I was shaking. I had done it. I did it. I ran 26.2 miles through Alaska. I could feel every step aching in my lower body, I was exhausted and sweaty and grinning like an idiot from ear to ear. The army guys passing out the medals asked me what my secret was. They laughed as I said “JUST KEEP BREATHING!” and held up my forearm to show them the smeared sharpie that bore that motto.

My official clocked time was 6 hours and 3 minutes. My next one….I’m shooting for 5!