Death. This noun that only has one syllable can effectively describe my experience while attempting to run a marathon for the first time ever. I was young and naive (2 months ago in November). I was approached by one of my running partners with the wager that I was unable to run a marathon without training and without walking. Obviously, being foolish and overly confident of my ability, I quickly accepted the bet and was excited to take my friend’s money. This is a distance of 26.2 miles. To put that into perspective, if you start on the Rock Island Trail at the Dunlap Public Library and run all the way to the Peoria Riverfront, you will have only ventured half the journey. The more I thought about the task the more daunting it became. I am a seasoned cross country runner and hardly take more than two weeks off total all year around. I thought to myself, “This is easy money man, no doubt I have this in the bag. I just need to wake up and run for a long ass time.” After a quick calculation, I figured that time would be approximately three hours and thirty minutes. The day before I decided I was going to run my marathon I thought about what my previous longest run ever was. A mere 13.1 miles. I had only run HALF the distance of a full marathon. My confidence was beginning to fade. In addition, I had not run in two weeks since the cross country season had ended, and was still recovering from minor injuries that I had encountered during the season. These thoughts all started racing (pun intended) through my mind as I thought about the marathon in three days. With only 1 day before I had scheduled my run I ignorantly pushed any negative thoughts out of my head and taunted my friends over the money they were about to fork up. I did not sign up for an actual marathon or plan to ingest any sort of nutrient packed snacks along the length of the run. No water, no food, no cheering fans. I wanted to accomplish this on my own without paying the entrance fee of a race. This lack of essential hydration, nutrition, and training would end up killing me during the run. I woke up at 8 A.M. ready for a run that I knew would take me into the afternoon hours. It was absolutely freezing outside, parts of the Rock Island Trail still covered in ice. The scariest part was taking my first step as I knew once I started there was no stopping for multiple hours. I clicked off my first nine miles with ease, thinking that this wouldn’t be so bad after all. At mile 13 I could start to feel my tendons, joints, and muscles all slowly begin to wear down. Mile 17: at this point I was well aware that I was not properly prepared and could feel the damage I was doing to my body. My vision was blurred and I could not focus on anything besides moving each leg. I was ready to quit at this point, but I was still three miles away from my car. These next couple of miles felt like hours of running. I managed to make it back to my car where I collapsed into the driver's seat. I was too weak to open my water bottle and had to sit for about a half hour before I was ready to drive. This run made me realize how my ignorant and confident attitude lead me to take on a challenge I was not prepared for. It was easily the most humbling experience of my life. Rock Island Trail
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March 2018
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