Your first marathon, what more can you say, it's a very special moment for a runner.
All the months of lonely training have meaning. I was a runner, I'd run 100 miles every month and lived in Monterey, California, it was a natural evolution to run the Big Sur Marathon. What I didn't realize was how difficult it was and the obstacles I accidently had to cross to finish this marathon. First off my pedometer was not set right, so I was running 2 miles less then i thought in training and secondly I read lots of books on marathons which stressed hydrate, well I overdid it and could not drink anymore fluids the last six miles of the race!
I think I did fairly well on this marathon in retrospect, I ran hills very hard at old Fort Ord and Hurricane Point was not a problem, it's just I was burned out at the end, but I kept running and I was cramping so bad I had to stop in sight of the finish line just past the 26 mile marker, I was screaming in pain actually and someone cried out "medic, get him off the course." I found out later that was a joke as they knew it would inspire me to finish and it worked. Ha, ha, but I would have crawled as I had to as we had 5:30 to finish that year and I had 45 minutes to make 2/10's of a mile.
When I hit the finisih line I couldn't help but tear up, it was very emotional, I did something very few people in this world achieves. I was so happy, I went home and watched the local news with my wife as they replayed some parts of the race. She said one thing to me which I will hold dear to my dying day and why we run marathons. She said, Paul, you are absolutely amazing. Hey, it's o.k. to get a complement at least once
in a lifetime!
