Preface: I signed up for the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Marathon on March 31st, 2009. At that moment I had grand plans of training, exercise, and finishing with a respectable time in the Marathon World. I got off to a great start too, training five days a week the entire month of April. I had gone from never working out to being able to run five to six miles without much fatigue and I seemed to be on pace for big things. Then the day after the Spring Semester had ended, I arrived at the Rec to workout as usual but I was stopped at the door and I was informed that since I wasn’t taking summer classes, I would need to pay fees of around $200 to continue working out through the summer. I was a bit perturbed in discovering this, but nevertheless, I concluded that I would just workout by running in my neighborhood . . . Big Mistake . . . As summer sped along, I continued to push back my workouts until it was the week before Fall Semester and I had realized that I hadn’t worked out once the entire summer. Three months until the Marathon and I was back to not being able to run three miles without dying. I decided I would have to work twice as hard in the coming months to catch up and prepare for the race. I worked out, sometimes twice a day, the rest of August and into early September before something happened . . . School! Test’s began to kink my schedule and projects put a hold on my workout routines. I fell into the procrastination that plagued my efforts throughout the summer and before long I realized that the RNRSA Marathon was only a week away. I went to the Rec and decided just to establish a pace plan for the race, running five miles by combining jogging and walking. The rest of the week I ate as healthily and as heartily as I could while trying to remain illness free.
Race Day: My Dad and I arrived downtown at about 5:30AM to catch the shuttle to Breckenridge for the start of the event. It was warmer than I had anticipated so I removed my sweats immediately upon arrival at the park. We both went to Corral 21 as it was the Corral my Dad was assigned to start in. We stretched, we waited, and then we stretched some more. They let the first Corral start at 7:30am and we finally got released at 8:10am. The first few miles I was pulled by the energy of the crowd, breaking my planned pace by running nearly the first eight miles without walking. It was at about Mile 8 that I started to feel the pain of unpreparedness.
The Half-Marathoners split off at Mile 10 and the course seemed to greatly open up at that point. I hung with the “Five-Hour Pace Group” until about the half-way point before I could run no further. I began to pass runners going the opposite direction and I soon realized that while I was on Mile 13, they were on Mile 23! I had a long way to go. I couldn’t run, both my feet felt worse than they had ever felt before and yet I was only half way done. Still I continued on, walking the entire time. My walking speed averaged out to about four miles per hour which I later learned was quite good, but people passed me left and right. It was obvious who had trained and who hadn’t.
By Mile 17 I could no longer see downtown San Antonio. The Tower of America’s was a faint object that one could barely discern on the horizon. Then the course changed direction and I was no longer headed south, but rather I was heading north, towards the finish line. Many times in those last nine miles I thought about how nice it would feel to stop and take a break, but I knew that if I did so, I would not be able to get going again. I had to keep moving, I had to finish! Each passing mile brought medical stations with increasing amounts of runners sprawled across the roadside in agony, suffering the fate of defeat. Similar scenes are depicted in war movies where injured soldiers are being treated on the battlefield for it was without a doubt that we were soldiers and the 26.2 mile course was the battlefield. I pressed on, through the pain and through the temptations, moving closer to finish line with each passing second.
On Mile 24 I nearly broke down. It was as if I was a plane and the pilot in the cockpit that is my brain were announcing “We have lost power in engine 1!” My right leg seemed to have given out on me when I was only two miles from the finish. As my pace slowed I told myself that I did not come 24 miles to not finish and for the last two miles of the race I dragged my right foot with sheer determination and will. If one did not know any better, they would have thought I was a zombie out of a movie by the way I was moving. As I reached Mile 26, with only 385 yards to go, I left all the pain and trouble behind and began running. I ran faster than I did at the start of the race, almost as if the last 385 yards were the actual race and I could still win. I crossed the finish line a little over six hours after I stepped across the start. I could barely walk, I was in horrendous pain, and yet I was relishing in one of the best achievements of my life! I learned in that moment, that you can train all you want for life and it’s obstacles, but no matter how much or how little you are prepared, you cannot succeed without determination. It is only once you set your mind to do something that anything is possible. I probably shouldn’t have attempted the marathon without proper training and many people say you probably won’t finish if you do, but no matter what others have to say, I have found that it is you and only you who determines what you can or can’t do.
I am a Marathoner!
| Distance | MAR |
| Clock Time | 6:45:40 |
| Chip Time | 6:05:39 |
| Overall Place | 5121 / 5882 |
| Gender Place | 2968 / 3270 |
| Division Place | 176 / 197 |
| Age Grade | 34.6% |
| Pace | 13:57 |
| Ttlrace | 5882 |
| Ttldiv | 197 |
| Ttlsex | 3270 |
| 5 Km | 30:50 |
| 6 1 Mi | 1:02:32 |
| 15 Km | 1:41:10 |
| Half | 2:32:23 |
| Turn | 3:07:58 |
| 20 Mile | 4:22:26 |
| 24 Mile | 5:30:57 |