*Warning: This is mega-long, and pretty emotional at points. Just like the race it is reporting on.*

The Marine Corps Marathon was my last race of the season, my first marathon, and the culmination of a year's sacrifice: physically and emotionally. My true goal was to simply finish the race.

As I was going through my training, I realized that Chippy was doing the race, and was going to have a group of supporters running with her. Since she was going to be going roughly the same pace, I asked if I could join Team Chippy, and was happy that she said 'Yes'.

When I found out last week that I would be able to do the race, my first thought was "Oh crap. I haven't trained for this." Especially since I had just set my 1/2M PR the week prior. My hope for this race became simply, "I hope I can keep up with Chippy".

This was going to be the longest distance I had ever covered and I had heard such horror stories about the mind during a marathon. My previous longest distance was the 1/2M distance of 2 stand-alones and a HIM.

Mile 0-5:
00:57:26 (NET) Pace 11:29

The run started off well with a lot of fun, laughter, and general excitement. The group kept a nice comfortable pace. I was on such a high that I was out there doing the race that I thought it was going to be easy at this pace. Let's call that "Exhibit 1" in my novice marathon evidence.

"Exhibit 2" was not understanding the term, or importance of, 'Throw-aways'. I wore my good tri club jacket at the start, but by mile 2 was too hot to continue wearing it. I was about to tie it around my waist when Jean said she was pulling out so, at least, I was able to drop it with her.

I ran to catch up with the group which took me a while b/c of weaving my way through so many people. If it wasn't for Jeep's flag, I probably never would have found them again.

Going through Georgetown, I whipped out my phone and saw that I missed a call from my mom and a text message from Eric. I called my mom and left her a voicemail, still feeling as upbeat as I was.

Mile 5-10:
01:54:11 (NET) Pace 11:25

This section of the course was predominantly through Rock Creek Park and back down to the end of the mall. The tree cover kept for a cool environment and a good feeling on the road.

At one point, I pulled off with several others for a bathroom break, including Stake, who has the Chipmunk bladder to go with Chippy's heart. :) When I took longer than everyone else, I was afraid I was done for. As I emerged and got back on the road, I saw the others immediately and we spotted Aaron's flag. We did some interval sprints through the crowd to catch back up. That was a nice way to get the heart pumping. "Exhibit #3" was the fact that I thought that occasional bursts of speed to keep the legs loose wasn't really that bad.

On the comeback portion of the Rock Creek run, I saw the one sight that I didn't ever want to see again: the ominous bus at the back of the course. Happily it was going the other direction and was ~2.5 miles behind us, but it was still a shot of reality that there was a consequence to not keeping up the pace.

Mile 10-13.1:
02:34:33 (NET) Pace 11:47

This is the section of the course that I was most looking forward to; the run along the mall, among all of the monuments. Everyone stopped for a potty break, and I took the opportunity to stretch the calves since they were starting to feel a little tight.

There were people handing out candy along the course and I broke the cardinal rule of racing: 'Don't try new things.' I took a couple of lollipops and some jelly beans during this section. They tasted SOOO good.

I also started to develop the Rorshach salt configuration on my shirt. Chippy gave me one of her E-Gels (which actually didn't taste too bad) and even shared some water with me.

As we passed through the 13.1 mark, I sent a text to Eric: 'Half way home. Now I'm in the realm of the unknown.'

Mile 13.1 - 23:
04:40:13 (NET)Pace 11:55

This period was the most eye-opening, mind-draining, body-punishing stretch of running that I had ever done. I knew I was in uncharted territory; physically and mentally.

Around the tidal basin was okay. I was having fun with Trix and Fit to keep my mind occupied. As we turned onto Haynes (sp?) Point, we stopped for the first time to rub out Chippy's ITB.

Around mile 17, we saw the 2nd most horrifying site possible: a guy was on the ground, blood on his face, and already intubated. The most horrifying site was what Max shared later: that, when he passed, the guy was on a cart and having chest compressions done.

That was a shot of reality that what I was doing really DOES have the risk of serious injury and death. I always looked at this as a way to be in the healthiest shape of my life, but never realized that there was a line beyond which the body will literally shut down.

One of my tri club members had warned me that this stretch was the worst, and they were right. This is where bodies started to break down, and the number of people who were off the side of the road stretching made it look like a physical battlefield with all the carnage.

One thing that certainly helped get through that section was a rousing rendition of "Baby Got Back". I know all the words to it, and nothing takes your mind off the pain like running with 5 fools chanting it out like a cadence. It actually turned out to be the 1st of 3 times that we'd sing it on the day.

It was great to finally see the bridge come into view since it meant that the loneliest portion of the course was behind us. As we turned to mount the bridge, the road narrowed and, with the spectators, the underpass was simply a cocophany of noise. Mentally, it helped, but the body was really starting to struggle at this point.

On the bridge, we tried to keep up the run/walk strategy, but Chippy was really starting to feel it in her legs. I was actually pretty happy about that because my right knee was starting to KILL and it was actually causing a shift in my stride structure. Then, the anger factor kicked in for her b/c she took off like a shot and we were doing 8:30 mile pace for as far as she could hold it. At one point, as I was getting dropped, I wanted to yell: "Will you just slow down you crazy BE-OTCH!?!" But I'm glad I didn't because of what happened next.

As we were coming towards the end of the bridge, Chippy looked at me and said "Shaun, do you want another E-Gel? You look like you're about to die." The fact that, regardless of the amount of her own pain, she was worried about how I was doing, and was willing to surrender her own nutrition for me, meant more than I can ever express in words.

As we cleared the bridge, we hit the Sport Beans food stop and then, more importantly, the "private" Subway cookie stop. Lane (Cavu9) went out after finishing his 10k and stopped at Subway b/c we asked him to and picked up a WHOLE bunch of cookies for us and a couple of Cokes. That was great because it gave us something to look forward to for the first 20 miles, and the finish line was something to look forward to after that.

As we got down through Crystal City and turned around, we entered our 2nd rendition of "Baby Got Back". It kept us able to run for longer than I thought possible on my knee, at that point. It was also at this point that Fit got hit on by some creepy, old, homeless-looking guy. I had a good laugh at that, for some strange reason. :)

Mile 23 - 26.2:
05:23:51 (NET) Pace 12:21

You can tell that the walking started to get to us because of the effect on our pace time.

We came past the Pentagon parking lot that we had departed from so many hours ago. It was at that point that I knew I was going to finish this race, no matter what.

Everything that had happened during the transformation hit me. 18 months ago, I was 325 pounds. 12 months ago, I wasn't able to run more than 3 miles. 6 months ago, I was unhappy in my marriage. And, now, today, I had persevered through every thing. The weight loss. The long training sessions. The separation. All of these were culminating in reaching my goal of becoming a true endurance athlete, not just some weekend warrior, flag-football player drinking beer with his buddies instead of truly making himself healthy. I actually started to cry at this point.

When we reached the foot of the Iwo Jima memorial, we all started to sprint to the line. It hurt so bad that I don't think I even heard the crowd. All that was going through my mind was 'One foot. One foot. One foot.'






NOTHING!!

After getting my medal and thermal blanket (the first that I had ever earned), we walked over to the finisher photo area. Everyone got a picture together and then I stopped and got one just of myself.

After emerging from the racers-only area into the sea of spectators, I quickly lost all sense of direction. I didn't know where anything was or where I was even going. I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that I had a bag at a brown truck and that we were all meeting at the 'B' area. I took my time wandering over to get my race bag and then back to the meeting area.

For probably 10 minutes, I sat there, head in hands, simply trying to understand and comprehend what I had just accomplished.


As my first marathon are there things I should have done differently? Sure. More training, more long runs, more understanding of what I would experience mentally during the race, etc.

But of all the things that I could have done differently, one thing I wouldn't have done differently was change my running partners. They were a steadying factor, a factor in making me feel like I belonged on that course, and truly were an inspiration after I cracked so late in the race.

I don't think I can say 'Thanks' enough to them. They were all absolutely amazing.