It's been two days and still recovering from the Iheya Marathon. As many of you know I've become almost obsessed with cycling and running, there aren't very many races that are not on Sunday but I found a race that was on a Saturday. Unfortunately, the race was over Halloween, the kids opted to get candy instead of watching me race, even though Izzy was tempted as I just returned from the Philippines. She'd say she MISSED me sooo much, it was very cute. (btw she says that everyday I come home from work, she's already melting my heart.) Myself and four friends have been preparing for this marathon vigorously for the last 14 weeks. Even while I was deployed I was able to find a treadmill and ran 19 miles looking at myself in the mirror. Here is a picture of the Island that I ran around.
Iheya is an Island that is an hour and a half ferry ride from the northern part of Okinawa.
We got there early with plenty of time to spare, personally I wasn't quite use to having time to spare, as I'm usually doing something the last minute. We dropped off all of our gear in a community gymnasium and claimed a spot on the hard wood floor. I was just nervous and wanted to start running. Ihyea Island is home to about 1500 residents, the marathon and half marathon attract over 1700 participants. I think there were 10 of us who spoke english. The marathon started off great! The crowds were lined up and down the town streets, the nursing home ladies were out in force to support all of the scantily clad runners like myself.
At mile 9 I felt my knee starting to get sore. But I had a great pace I was running with a Japanese man who I found out works in an adjacent building to mine, and on track to run a 3 hour 20 min marathon. Mile 9 to 14 were probably my favorite miles to run, they were awesome! The scenery was spectacular and my speed was fast, probably b/c I had the wind at my back actually pushing me up and down the coast line. Unfortunately these good times had to end. My knee kept bugging me, and at mile 14 I couldn't ignore it any longer. Here I could no longer put any weight on my right knee. This same thing happened to me on first marathon. I walked/ran to finish and didn't want to do the same. The only difference is that I just couldn't run, and when I tried I found that it was actually slower then my power walk. Therefore, for the last 12.6 miles I power walked it in, thank goodness for all those power walkers in my neighborhood, b/c of them I must have had awesome technique.
It was really hard not to take the wimp wagon back, but not too hard b/c I couldn't talk to anyone. Toward the end I wanted to break my first marathon time and finished with time to spare. My last marathon I ran without training and I finished in 5 hours and 20 mins, I finished the Iheya marathon in 5 hours 19 minutes and 3 seconds. All that training gave me 57 seconds on my marathon time.
Despite all the pain and frustration I'm looking forward to planning my next marathon.
Thanks Melissa for being so supportive, I couldn't have done it without your support and love. I love you babe
3 comments:
you freakin' rock, babe. way to go for finishing and you'll get sub-four next time. i love you.
i freaking love you!! i did laugh... super proud of you. you seriously are so rad. congrats on your marathon. jealous next one lets run together!! or power walk i'm in either way. xoxo miss you
Good job Rob. I am jealous of the adventure you guys are having now that I am gone. I took for granted how easy it was to find such amazing experiences around every corner in Oki. Spain is sweet, but Oki was a dream. I hope to find some more adventures around here. Did a duathlon over the weekend. Good times. Hope your knee feels better. Keep biking. I would appreciate if you would all put a black bar on your sleeves to remember the missing biker among your ranks. Wish you could all come and ride Spain with me.
Nick
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