It was Sunday, Nov. 2, 2014...New York City Marathon day. The final chapter of PoppaRunner and here it is! I woke up at 4:45 and went downstairs like I have been doing the last 5 months. Got on the foam roller for 29 minutes. Especially worked on the calf muscles, the glute , the hips the quards and the hamstring. Everything felt good. Jumped in the shower then came upstairs. Made 3 pancakes, some syrup, some orange juice..Made my smoothie and peanut butter sandwich to take with me like I always do on these long distance races..I had my clothes already to gofrom the night before..It was going to be cold and very windy. So 2 pairm 2 long sleeve shirts, scarf, ski hat , baseball hat, gloves, hand warmers, winter coat, power gels , salt sticks and i was ready to go..Met some friends over the summer from Somerville and 7 of us rented a taxi service to take us to the start. Got there at 8:15 and now had almost 3 hours before I start running...It was so cold and blustery. Anything not tied down was blowing all over the place. It hard to stay warm. There were 50,500 runners divided in 4 groups(waves). Ate my sandwich and drank the smoothie and waited...Jogged around the best I could but so many people difficult to do that. Finally it was our wave to walk to the start. I really didnt stretch that much. By not doing that and standing in the cold was probably going to affect me later on in the race...So the gun goes off and Frank is singing New York, New York...Everybody is PUMPED..Screaming and yelling and heading up the bridge. Runners were peeling layers of clothing off all over the place as I was doing myself. Off with the ski hat and on goes the baseball hat. winter jacket off. Thats all I took off at the time cause is was so cold..As we got to the steepest part of the Verrazano the wind gusts were up to almost 50 mph.It was blowing people all over the place. It was dangerous in that you had to be careful you didnt fly into someone next to you and fall down Anyway we made it over the bridge and onto 4th ave In Brooklyn..Next 5 miles were flat and straight with thousands of people on both sides. Water and gatorade stations every mile and that was my plan. I would run to each station, mix the water and gatorade together and every 3 miles take a gel and every hour a salt stick..This plan was working perfectly. I was doing approx a 12 min pace and feeling strong...left 4th ave and on to Laffayette and over the bridge and into Queens all the time checking my pace on my garmin and trying to stay consistent.. finally got to the half way point (l3.1) and was happy that i did the half marathon part of the race in 2 hrs. 40 min..Now another 13.1. Got on the Queensboro Bridge headed for Manhatten and could feel my legs starting to tighten up...stopped and stretched coupe time and as I was headed down the bridge to 1st Ave......WHAM!!!!!.....nasty cramp in my calf...It almost came without warning. I couldnt move..Tried to stretch it...I was slowly able to limp down to 1st ave where my family was waiting. They saw me coming and knew I was in trouble. Katie jumped over the fence and said Im coming with you. She said dont even try to run or your going to take yourself right out of this race..So we limped/walked the next 10 miles without stopping....she kept throwing positive statements at me to keep me focused. Only another runner would know the hell i was going through at this point.As we entered the park at mile 24 there was an elderly woman trying to make it to the finish line. She was a tetrapalegic. I just thought that i will be walking good in 2 days and she wont walk agaain...I am so blessed...at mile 25 was my gang again and they all just jumped in and walked with me up to Columbus circle. Then I was able to jog slowly to the finish...I had done it....It was ugly but I did it.. 5 months of rolling, stretching, strenghth, diet, hydration, and at least 400 miles of running....maybe more.....all that and end up with a cramp. But ya know what....in the last 10 years I have done 4 NYC Marathon, 5 NYC half marathons, 29 overall half marathons, 6 eighteen mile races. and over 250 races. I have 4 stents in my arteries from about 10 yrs ago and all of these races I ran with those stents..I saw my cardiologist today and he told me of all the hundreds of patients he has I am the only marathon runner..he is so proud of me....if can be an example to just one person and change their life and be an inspiration to them it will be worth evey step I took in that 10 mile walk to the finish line.. I am done with marathons now...I told my kids...thats 4 and no more...only 5ks to half marathons from now on...my ultimate goad is to run 5ks with my grandchildren. The amount of people i have to thank for their support is endless. I so looked forward to writing you messages every week and to hear your response. This isnt the end of the PoppaRunner....He will return...Until then....Keep Running!
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 02:12:07 +0000
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