I started writing this post back in May when I signed up to run the Juneau Alaska Marathon. This post is therefore written almost as journal entries from my training. This has been quite an experience so take a read!
May 7th 2021
Today I signed up for my first marathon. I am not a runner. Especially a distance runner. Currently I sit at 5 foot 10 inches 200 lbs, five months ago I was up at 220. When I weighed in at 220, The biggest I had ever been, I decided that I couldn't get any bigger and needed to drop at least 40Lbs. My motivation has been quite vain, I want to be better looking in my eyes. My love for food was finally trumped by a desire to look better. Then as things got harder I needed better motivators. My next favorite motivator has been hunting the elusive mountain goat, consistently. With that goal in mind, I set a short term goal. Run a marathon. I considered this thought as rich self deprecating humour and laughed out loud at it. Then I did a little research to see if there was one in the area and sure enough, the Juneau Alaska Marathon. Today, feeling fairly confident because I had run a total of 28 miles this week I pulled the trigger and paid the 70 bucks needed to register. You can bet I'm not going to waste 70 bucks and not at least give it my all. Here we go.
July 26, 2021
5 days and i'll be toeing up to the line to run my first marathon. My longest run has been a 20 miler and I felt good, I was ready for more. I have put in a few 40 miles weeks and I weigh 180lbs. I feel great. Except for my right knee. It has been barking at me trying to tell me that I have something going on. I haven't quite figured out what's wrong yet but I am taking precautions to avoid long standing damage. The same thing happened to my left knee probably 3 weeks ago. I babied it, I cut down on the amount of training I was doing, I was taking collagen supplements and of course I got that knee adjusted by my chiropractor. Now that knee is doing just fine. My resting heart rate right now is 40 BPM and it has been dipping down into the 30s. When I started tracking my resting heart rate I was around 55-60 BPM.
July 31st, 2021
I did it, I finished my run in 3:57:05 just squeaking in under my goal of 4 hours. It was hard. I knew it would be a mental game towards the end but I didn't really expect it to be as hard as it was. When we started I immediately jumped out in front of the pack and had to continually check my pace because I thought I was running faster than normal. As we started the other thing I noticed was that my foot was hurting. The first step of 40,560 steps felt like I had something boring into the outside of my foot. I was not excited about that feeling but I was going to finish that marathon, There was no other option in my head. Luckily around mile 16 my foot was swollen enough that my injury had stabilized and my foot stopped hurting. That is a great example of how inflammation works in our favor to protect us. When I crossed the finish line I drank some water, walked to a shady tree and laid down. I felt like I could just fall asleep. I was excited but too tired to be excited.
Final thoughts
The overall experience was great, the training was fun and tough. Watching all the athletes compete was amazing and we had a beautiful day in Juneau for the run. I really need to thank my chiropractor at City Center Chiropractic for keeping me in the game as well. Dr. Baastrup has been a great encouragement and he has kept my spine aligned so I could continue training. I am so glad I decided to move up here, put these goals in place and become a chiropractor in Juneau, Ak.
