Sunday, June 1, 2013
I am an active duty military member stationed in Germany. My son is a high school senior. He has been in four different high schools due to us moving every year for the past four years. So when it came time for his senior year, my wife and I decided that it would be best for him to go back to the HS that he went to his Sophomore year in Northern Virginia and graduate from there.
I traveled back to Germany from the States after Christmas and I knew that I needed something to help me get through the next six months until I lived with my family again. I got the idea to run a marathon. A few years ago in Iraq, a group of us talked about running the Vienna marathon, but It did not work out. I looked up the date for the Vienna marathon (middle of April) and I was not sure I had enough time for a full marathon so I signed up for the half. I bought plane tickets and booked a hotel...now I was committed. I still had the urge to run a full marathon, so the next day I looked for a marathon in the middle of summer, somewhere in Europe. Stockholm. I have always wanted to go there. That was the marathon. Again, I bought the airline tickets and booked a hotel...committed. Now, all I had to do was train.
I printed off a marathon training plan for beginners from the web. I had just over twenty weeks. I started the training, but after only a few weeks, my feet really started to hurt. Several visits to the doctors, PT and a few weeks off of running (substituted by the elliptical) and I was back on track.
The half marathon was absolutely essential to my training. I had never run in a big race like that before. I got caught up in wanting to pass the guy or gal in front of me. I did not want to stop for water. I just wanted to finish under two hours. I hit the wall and finished in just over 2:02. I was freezing at the end of the race. I felt terrible. So, I took the lessons learned from that race and incorporated them into my plan for the marathon:
I need a nutrition plan for the race.
I need to figure out how to hydrate on my training runs I need to not spend so much energy passing/weaving in and out of other runners during the race I need to focus on the goal...finishing...not a set time
As June approached, I finished my last long run (8 miles) the weekend before the race. My knee hurt and I wondered if I would/should even do the marathon. I took the week off and decided that I would at least start and see how it went. 4 hours and 45 minutes later I had finished. First marathon, and maybe my last, complete. I thank The Lord for giving me the strength to finish. Amazingly, I felt better after the marathon than I did after the half.
I only have a few days left in Germany before I move back with my family. I drop my son off at college in less than a month. I am grateful that the Stockholm Marathon gave me something to focus on while I was separated from my family.
Return
to the First Marathons page
