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Strange Hotels, Marathons, And The Wall
Hitting the wall is the biological equivalent to riding a bike on a flat tire.
I ran my second marathon in Albany, Georgia, recently, and this one felt different from the last. Although it was slower, it meant more to me and felt like a bigger accomplishment than the previous marathon I ran in Savannah back in November.
I went into this marathon doing, at max, 40–45 miles per week, three to four runs a week, with a couple 20 mile long runs with my friend, Greg, to prepare myself aerobically for the long race. Now, if a race is 26.2 miles, it certainly is an issue when my weekly training mileage is less than twice the miles I’m supposed to race in one day.
But things got in the way. I had work to do, homework to catch up on, and on some days, I just skipped running in general for an extra two hours of sleep. I couldn’t run for three weeks after spraining my ankle so bad on a run that I couldn’t walk for several days. I will not say that life that got the best of me: laziness and a general lack of motivation for this race got the best of me more.
I was slower and less fit going into this marathon, but that did not stop me at the start line from gunning for my personal best in Savannah. That was the point, after all, of planning to go to Albany in the…
