The Half Marathon as a Prep Race
To prepare for the Ironman I like to run in the half marathon that is held in April in our city every year. I like to run as fast as possible during the half marathon just to test myself because I know that during the Ironman I will not be going fast at all after the swim and the bike. And yet my time this year was about four minutes slower than last year. It wasn’t my time that bothered me so much, it was just that I had a lousy run. My muscles ached and my hips hurt and I just wasn’t into it. That was a blow to my ego because I thought that I was past the painful part of running a 13.1 mile race but apparently I have to keep learning the same lesson. Races are painful. Training is painful. The Ironman is just a few months away and, if my effort of the half marathon is any gauge, I don’t know if I can be ready. My racing days are about over and, although I didn’t expect for the mini marathon to be easy, I certainly didn’t think that it was going to be this hard. The thought occurred to me once again that maybe I should find another sport because this one just hurts too much.
After I finished the half marathon and collected my medal I drove home and parked the car in the garage and just sat there. I was so physically drained that I knew if I tried to stand then I would pass out on the concrete floor next to the car. And yet I could feel the diarrhea working its way through my intestines. After every fast run I have GI problems because I have jarred my system but this time I couldn’t make it to the toilet on time. My choice was to get out of the car and pass out on the floor or stay in the car and shit myself and so I shit myself as I laid my head back and drifted in and out of consciousness. I broke out into a cold sweat and started to shiver even though it felt like it was ninety degrees on the inside of my car. I was a prisoner of my own devices and, try as I may, I could not force myself out of my seat. As I was sitting in the car I became nauseated by the heat and the smell of the excrement collecting in my pants. I grabbed the swag bag full of ads and promotions that the race organizers have provided for us and prepared to throw up into it. Usually after a big race I get the dry heaves but this time I didn’t even have the energy to do that.
After an hour and a half in the car I thought that I could safely walk to my apartment without passing out. As soon as I stood up all of that diarrhea that had been kept up inside of my body due to the pressure of my sitting on the car seat, came flooding out. As I got into the elevator I saw that an old man was already in there. He asked me how the race went, knowing that I had just returned from the half-marathon because I still had my bib number on and was wearing my racing kit. I said that it was a rough race and yet I still managed to finish it in an hour and forty-nine minutes, all the while praying that the excrement didn’t leak out of my shorts and dribble down my leg.
Mercifully I made it back to the apartment without any other encounters. I stepped into the shower with all of my clothes on but, before I turned on the water, I took off my shorts and the shit just went everywhere. I struggled to get the rest of my clothes of and then rinsed the excrement off of my legs, out of my shorts, and then off of the floor of the shower room. I toweled myself off and hobbled my way to my bed and slid in between the sheets without any clothes on because I didn’t have the energy to put on even a pair of underwear. I was still shaking from the effort of the race and I wanted to do was to sleep. My whole body hurt; hips, ankles, back and knees. My G.I. track was still acting up and it was not done revolting against me for the pressure that I had put upon it during the race. Three hours later I got up, ate some dinner, and then went back to bed.
The thing is that it was a pretty good race for me. I prepared well, even though I didn’t put enough running miles on the road, and watched my nutrition. While I was waiting at the starting line I massaged my leg muscles to loosen up. On the course my abdominal muscles cramped up twice and I had to walk awhile. On two other occasions my G.I. track started to act up but I thought that I could walk it off before the conclusion of the race because my GI track felt like it was on fire. With a total of four stops I suppose that I should feel lucky that I finished in less than two hours.
Why do I do this to myself? That is the question that I constantly ask myself. A full day after the race I could still feel my G.I. issues coming on and I was still shaking a little bit. The real reason why I do this is that I have no idea. I humiliated myself by shitting on myself and I have wasted a whole day sleeping it off. And this was just a half marathon; it takes me about a month to fully recover from the Ironman. I promise myself that I will never do this to myself again. And yet, as the pain fades away and the shaking stops, I know that I will sign up for the mini-marathon again just like I’ll sign up for the Ironman again until something makes me stop this foolishness.
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