Skipping past the 10K for a Marathon Relay

Yesterday I rose at 4:20 in the morning to carpool with my fellow running friends from church to Frederick, MD (near Baltimore) to participate in the Frederick Marathon Relay. The eight of us formed two teams, the First Trinity “Trotters” and “Pokeys.” Each team of four would complete a full marathon, passing of the “baton” (in this case, a time chip) between the four 6-8.5 mile legs.

I was on the Pokeys and ran the first, 6.7 mile leg. My running buddy for the Trotters, Greg, had just completed the Boston Marathon in, oh, 3 hours and 9 minutes or so. But he graciously ran at my snail’s pace, and it was fun to have someone to talk to the whole way.

We definitely had the best leg, through the level streets of Frederick’s picturesque downtown, park, older residential areas. The weather at the 6:30am start was also a perfectly still, misty 60 degrees. I don’t think I’ve had such an enjoyable run in months. (Hmm, maybe that means I should be pushing myself a little harder…) Mile 1 seemed a little slow-going, and at Mile 4 I felt find of tired, but then miles 5 and 6 seemed to fly past, and before I knew it we were passing off the timing chips on our ankles to Fran and Pastor Wendy.

While I may be slow, at least I was consistent: I took exactly 11 minutes to run the first mile, the sixth mile and every mile in between, finishing my part in about 70 minutes. (We kept running into the 4:45 professional marathon pacers, but I think we were paced even more evenly than they.)

I have never run that far in my life! To train, I was running up to about 4 to 5.5 miles. I skipped right past the 10K distance that has always intimidated me a little (6.1 miles) to go a whole quarter of a marathon! No more intimidation – I think I finally caught that “runner’s bug” all my running friends talk about. All I can say is, it’s about time. I’ve been hanging around these type of people for years and was beginning to worry that I was immune.

Today, I have only a hint of tightness in my quads, but boy are my feet sore. Ouch. I am not used to pounding the pavement for such a long time, and the bones in my feet feel like those little parasols they put in tropical drinks. Spindly, delicate, and very, very bendy. Yikes.

Still, I decided to limp down to the Jewish Community Center (my fitness center) and stretch out my muscles with a few laps in their pool. Which quickly turned into a mile long swim, but felt great.

I just hope my feet feel better within the next couple days. I can’t wait to go for another long run…

Tags: DC, fitness, frederick marathon, marathon, relay, running, trinity trotters