I was so excited to run a marathon? Yeah, well, guess what didn’t happen? Yup, that whole finishing the marathon part. Thankfully it was not because I got injured or even because I gave up and dropped out… instead, my race got CALLED! On Sunday, I had pretty much sworn off running every again and was certain I would never blog again, especially ABOUT running… but now that I have had a little more time to think things through, I might have been over reacting slightly to the whole turn of events. So instead of just leaving this whole thing hanging, today I decided I wanted to type up a little something to remind myself of that day that I didn’t become a marathoner 
So since things didn’t exactly go as planned, I’ll just skip the whole race expo post and all that jazz and get right to the black flagged stuff…
Who knew this was NOT going to be my marathoner number… it seemed like a good one?
So anyways, the expo was fine, it was in a football stadium, it was much less crowded than the Nashville expo and packet pickup went well. Everything seemed on track and a good indicator of a good race the next day. The weather forecast had even settled down a little to be low 80′s with the storms holding off until later in the day so everything looked so promising and that all my prayers had been answered. Despite all this, I still had this weird nagging thought that I was not thisclose to becoming a marathoner though and I guess that thought proved to be all too right…
Sunday morning I woke up, got ready and got to the start line no problem. Everything was going really well, I was not THAT nervous and people were not worried about the weather at all from what I could tell. The race started at exactly 7am and I probably crossed about 2 minutes later. I was off with plans to see Sister at the 10K point for a water switch and a gu refill.
So many people who will not be finishing today!
At the 10k point, I was feeling really good, I could tell I was hot and I was holding a slower pace than I had anticipated but I knew slower in the beginning is important to not crash too far before the finish line, so I switched fuel with the Sister and headed off for the next meetup point which was the halfway point.
I recall around mile 9, I saw my first runner passed out in a yard with a sprinkler going over her and wondered what was up with that. At this point, I was still feeling fine and the miles were slowly ticking down so I didn’t think too much of it. I was keeping a count of 26.2 miles to go, 25.2 to go, etc and was actually a teeny bit sad with each mile that passed because that was one mile of my first ever marathon that was over and I was never going to get to run again.
Then by the time I got to the split off point for the half marathon and marathon, I heard my first ambulance siren and knew things were going downhill fast… I could also tell people were starting to get really hot and I knew I was also starting to get rather warm. A few stops with ice helped me for the time being and I kept trucking along until 13.1.
The halfway point was right in front of the hotel I stayed at so that was kind of nice and sister got to stop back and refresh things for me from the room. I actually sat by her at this point and warned her that I would be slowing down from here on out because it was getting H.O.T.! But I still figured I would finish so I asked her to meet me in about 5 miles instead of the 20 mile point that we had planned on the night before.
Right after I left her, the thoughts in my mind started to shift to this daunting dread that I was not going to finish… I switched to start walking/running because I was super hot and could tell everyone around me was slowing considerably. Somehow I made it through another 2 miles OK but then as I was about to cross the 15 mile time pad, I saw a sign…
“Marathon Cancelled. STOP now.”
I actually asked the guy by the sign if that was true because I figured there was no way but he assured me it was and runners were being told to stop and all aid was going to come to a halt shortly… I freaked out a little bit because I knew sister was about 3 miles ahead of me and I didn’t know what to do but an awesome volunteer let me sweat all over his phone and call her to come and pick me up.
I then walked into the shade and sat on a curb in a state of shock. What had just happened? Was this real? Why? And on the other hand, I was sadly semi-happy that it was no longer a call I would have to make to stop running because it was so hot. Now I really had no choice. It was a whole twisty bunch of emotions and I am still not really sure what my main thought was at that point…
Since that time, I have pretty much cycled through all the emotions that one could possibly feel about running… and then some. I have been sad, happy, depressed, disappointed, shocked, discouraged, etc., etc. It was bad when my first marathon dream was halted because of my training issues but now to have a marathon halted because of 90 degree temperatures at 9:25am in MAY, in Wisconsin, I was just shocked, and still pretty much am. I trained for this darn thing through snowstorm after snowstorm after cold front all to have it be cancelled because of the heat. Ironic, no? 6 months of training I feel like was a total waste now…
I later found out that the heat index had climbed to 90 degrees and the med tents were overfilled and so many people ended up with heat related issues that they just had to call it at 9:25 am. 10,000 half marathoners and about 2,000 marathoners were signed up for this race… 3,600 half marathoners and 10 marathoners officially finished this race. Crazy!
Part of me wanted to use this race as an excuse to give up and not go after running another marathon… and then a larger part of me took over and made me realize, I will not rest until I am A Marathoner. Some day. Not May 20, 2012, but some day…
On to Plan C to my route to be a marathoner…
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There is no time too early or temperature too cold to make me skip a run…. However, the same cannot be said for the heat. After my cancelled marathon, I realized that I need to work on this. Sure, if my marathon would not have been cancelled, I would have finished, but I would have had to walk way more than 50% of the second half of the race because at mile 15 when it started getting hot, I just m.e.l.t.e.d…
