To run a marathon, or not to run a marathon?
That is actually never the question in our house; we’re most likely already training.
Are we old and tired? Yes.
Do we have WAY too much going on? Also, yes.
Does this even matter? Sadly, no.
Mark and I thrive on creating epic stories and making the kind of memories that you can feel in aching knees and scars.
If only it was appropriate to show the full-butt bruises that lived with me through the winter from our ultimate sledding sessions. Instead, just picture the black and blue mottled skin of a bruise, a bad bruise, one that’s ringed by green and puffy after the full damage makes its way to the surface and it takes away all excitement that you were thinking about a butt.
Bring on the snow.
But until then, we run the thing.
The most recent thing: the Mount Desert Island Marathon in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Since late 2019 this race has been on the agenda:
- We’ve never been to Maine, how better to explore a new place than to take a 26.2 mile tour on foot?
- Cool medal.
- Increased odds of seeing a moose.
But then COVID hit and burst our bubble.
Twice.
Eventually we forgot we had even signed up. We stopped running and started packing on winter/spring insulation. Life was grand and carefree! Nothing ruling our days but the things we wanted for ourselves!
But wait…
…ah sh*t.
“Training starts this weekend…”
“…with a 6-mile run.”
Friends, perhaps you are familiar with the phrase, “if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.”** We did not use our running legs so we lost our running legs and had to suffer extra to get back our running legs in the four months it takes to get ready for a marathon.
**Fun fact: the origin of this phrase is believed to be less euphemistic and more beaurocratical: if your agency does not spend all of its budget it must give the money back to the treasury.
But this is not a post about our toils through the ups and downs of training for an impossible distance that would take us through 1,700 feet of elevation gain. Nay-nay. I am here to slather you with the good, the bad and the truly ugly that made this race an A+, 9/10 adventure that will be forever imprinted in our brains, laminated and saved in our memories for future visits.
Points taken off for no moose sighting.
First, The Town.
Bar Harbor is the start of the race and so it’s where we stayed. It is Cabot Cove come to life; small and quaint and you should never visit because I’d like for it to stay charming and untouched by commercial entities capitalizing on increased tourism, mmmkay?
The seafood: aces.
Acadia tchotchkes: a’plenty.
Views from the harbor: bury me, I died.
Of course we also had to do our part to support the wild blueberry industry in Maine. My advice: when you don’t take your trip to Bar Harbor, don’t try the blueberry pie. And certainly don’t eat at Jeanie’s Great Maine Breakfast.
Now, The Race.
Hard. The race was hard.
Early on we clocked a mile-and-a-half hill; a lot of runners hit the wall on that hill, you could almost see the bonk in their gait. It was an accurate indication of what was still to come; but we were prepared, we trained in the hilliest sections of our neighborhood.
And our bodies held out well beyond the halfway point.
But then we broke down HARD.
Mark had struggled with a nagging Achilles issue. A trainer looked at it the day before the marathon, felt around his calf and told him to skip the race. He specifically used the words “crutches” and “ruined for life.” Obviously Mark ignored his qualified advice and ran, overcompensating with other less-developed leg muscle groups and spent the last four miles on pins and needles.
For me it was the angle of the road that derailed my life’s ambition of making Mark eat my dust. The pitch was so extreme that it threw my right hip out of alignment causing my leg to give out every 50 yards for the last few miles.
We walked the last two miles. Didn’t even attempt a light jog. Couldn’t even attempt a light jog. But we still finished; we collected our medals and our pizza slices and celebrated with everyone else who just did the same. I’m not even mad at the women who commented that we looked like we’d been on a nice Sunday stroll as we crossed the finish line.
I mean, I’m not mad now.
I do hope they see this, though.
Broken bodies aside, I said at mile 15 I would do this race again and I still mean it.
The weather, the course, the scenery, the runners behind us blasting Queen from a portable speaker; it all lined up perfectly. The golden lobster claw medal, the finishers’ dinner party and a thousand people hobbling around town, nodding in solidarity, were the added bonuses.
It’s the full picture that will keep me coming back, the things you don’t necessarily hear when runners talk about their races: four months of my life dedicated to training, the excited buzz at the starting line, counting down the miles of the race, the instant relief at the finish line, and then reminiscing about it hours, days, months and years later.
It also helps if there’s chowdah at the finish line.
But speaking of pictures…
Of course we’re already training for our next race; the start of our next four races if 2023 is kind to us. Myrtle Beach 26.2 or bust!
Fine + Fir 