I just finished a nearly flawless 18 week long training program for the LA Marathon. I juggled, but met all of my commitments to friends and family, ran many times at 3am and rode during my lunch breaks. I ate well and made sure to get the sleep my body needed. I made sure to record the mileage on my shoes and kept them fresh; I’m talking DETAILS! I did everything in my control to execute a personal best marathon.
I took the day off on Friday before the marathon to go to the expo and pick up my race number so that I could spend Saturday with my family (after the final run of my taper period). We spent the middle part of the day at a Tae Kwon Do tournament, which is an important part of my family and social life. I started feeling a little nauseous around lunch time, figured I was hungry. Couldn’t find anything I wanted to eat at the tournament so I decided to wait until the planned pasta feast planned for dinner.
We checked into our hotel room at the Bonaventure downtown LA and walked a couple of blocks to Maria’s kitchen for dinner. It was about this time that I began to fear that my marathon wasn’t going to happen. I broke into a cold sweat when the food arrived at our table and ran to the bathroom fearing that I would barf right there in the restaurant. I didn’t barf but it was close. Just to shorten the story this continued all night long, I got almost no sleep and hadn’t eaten for 20 hours. When I couldn’t even think about eating my favorite oatmeal and peanut butter breakfast I knew my marathon wasn’t going to happen. I can’t explain how it felt to cross over the marathon course as we headed home.
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