Posted on
Sep 30, 2009 by laurah
T2:
I flew into transition, ripping my shoes off before unclipping from the bike. I threw my precious Cervelo at the transition volunteer and sprinted to pick up my bike bag. Everything went smoothly, and I was prancing through “RUN OUT” in four minutes and thirty seconds. I was focused on my pace, my plan, my marathon, my time…..and then pushing through the crowd, I saw my mother. Her face was filled with pride and encouragement. I stopped right in front of her and gave her the biggest hug and kiss I could muster in my exhausted state.
The Run:
My big thing about this marathon was to run the whole thing.
While I love riding my bike, cycling will never be running. You will rarely find me unexcited to go for a run, and the marathon is my favorite run distance... The marathon was great but……a definite challenge. I knew I had to pace myself and that I didn't want to be running faster than 8:30 minute miles at the start. I timed the first mile...7:31, and I thought, “Dang LTJ, you have to slow down!” So I ran the second mile...8:30. At this point, I give myself a serious talking to—“LTJ, slow the heck down now or you are going to regret it later”. I listened to myself and backed off. I settled into a comfortable pace just over 9 minute miles. I smiled for every camera I saw, yelled to my parents as I ran by, high-fived the kids when they stuck out their hands and just enjoyed the heck out of myself. I know that I can run a marathon only taking Gatorade and water, but I took two vanilla gels with me. I hit ~13.1 miles in 1:58.
My other fear was with regards to nutrition. By mile 13 the thought of ingesting any more Gu or Gatorade made me ill. I knew, however, my body would not continue to function without some level of nutrition. I can only stomach vanilla GU. My fear was that all the gels they would have on the run would be chocolate and I had used up my vanilla stash. At this point I was feeling dehydrated, tired but not horrible, just really, really tired. I start doing calculations in my head. I figured if I continued to run this pace, I might just miss finishing my marathon in four hours. So I started to try and pick up the pace, and at mile 15 my worst fear became a reality.
I ran through the aid station, grabbed a gel, ripped it open and downed it before I could even look at the flavor. Orange. GROSS! My stomach started to rumble….started to rebel. “I’ve subsisted on power bars, GU and Gatorade all day” my body screamed, “I’ve done my best to make you fast and strong and now you give me orange gel? I QUIT”. Needless to say, I lost the argument, and in total surrender, dove into the nearest port-o-potty.
Although I gave into my uncontrollable biological needs, I did not forget my goals: run the whole marathon. I used the road side toilets 4 times. But I limited my stops to 1:30 sec each time, and was running out the door! About 3 miles from the finish, I started to slow….BIGTIME! I looked at every patch of grass and envisioned a soft comfy bed…I could just lie down. Who would care? Would it ultimately matter if I finished in 11hours and 50 minutes or 12 hours and 30 minutes? I was just so tired.
I honestly don’t know what happened but I just convinced myself to shut up and keep running. “LTJ, you were more tired than this in December when you were going through radiation!” I told myself. “You were more tired than this after surgery!” (I was now talking to myself out loud). “You beat cancer twice; suck it up and kick in the last 3 miles!”
I rounded the corner with the finish in sight. I pounded out the last quarter mile with every last bit of strength in my body. I looked down the finishing shoot into my brother’s eyes, arms held out with a medal – ready to catch my lifeless body. The crowd erupted. The announcer boomed “Laurah Turner Jones from Indianapolis, two time breast cancer survivor, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!”
Official finishing time: 11 hours 51 minutes 43 seconds.
No Kona qualification this year, but a darn good training run for Tour de Pink!