Part I: Pre-Marathon Metamorphosis

If you read my last blog, written many months ago, you’ll remember I wanted to learn about pain, the kind of pain that accompanies truly racing. This is what I said I wanted to do: “I want my arms to be numb, or my legs on fire with burning lactic acid, or feel like I’m in a tunnel, or feel like I’m going to hurl.” This is the journal of how I finally got there, in an unlikely venue: the last 5 minutes of the nastiest racing conditions I’ve ever endured in a marathon, with my crappiest finishing time in seven years. But I’m happy.

May and June, 2007

At the end of May, I come down with a monster cold. I’m to start marathon training for Twin Cities soon, so I bomb myself with zinc, Zicam, echinacea, C, and Airborne. Nothing helps. I’m sick for three weeks with the most virulent virus I’ve had in 10 years. Elaine says she knows people who didn’t recover for over a month. Ugh. I do maintenance running during the worst of it, and try to build back up.

July 4

At mile 4 in the Semana Nautica 15K, I bail. I can’t get enough oxygen. I thought I was running 7 minute miles, but my watch doesn’t lie: no better than 7:30’s. Liz Lauderdale, also sick, becomes my drop-out buddy. We run/walk a few miles, bonding in our misery, and she veers off to run home. I finish the “race” in 1:15, ten minutes over my goal.

I need a doctor, I decide. This ain’t right.

July 6

I see a cheerful, athletic young practitioner at my doctor’s office. She gives me two inhalers, saying I have “infiltrators” left over from the infection that are causing me to have “sticky” lungs, mimicking asthma.

She encourages me to run through the condition. I like her.

July 21

We begin our marathon training!

I run with Mike and Rusty’s group on Tuesday’s and Saturdays, and receive my schedule from Mike every week. Our first official marathon workout seems aggressive but do-able: 2 x what we’ve come to call “Rusty’s Loop,” (some of us call it the “Dreaded Rusty’s Loop”) a rather challenging 4-mile course Rusty has marked every .25 miles. We’re to warm up, run the first loop at 40 secs slower than marathon pace, the second at 20 secs slower, then back to Goleta Beach (3.5 miles) at marathon pace.

I forgot my albuterol! Dang. I start out feeling very wheezy, but keep pace the whole time, even coming in ahead of pace on mile 3—the hard mile—of the second loop. I run the last 3. 5 on pace. I’m satisfied with my performance, especially given the wheezing.

July 24

I have a frustrating hill workout with the group. I can’t get my heart rate up because I can’t get full use of my lungs. It feels very strange:  my legs are fine, but my aerobic capacity–usually my strong point–is restricted.  I just can’t get enough oxygen to my working muscles to stoke ‘em.  I return to the young practitioner at my doctor’s office, who puts me on me a course of antibiotics.

July 31

We run three sets of half-mile intervals up on More Mesa, at 80/85/90%. I feel much better. I’m recovered!

August 4

Our first 20+ miler. We warm up 8-9 miles, then run 5 miles at MP. Cooldown is 7 miles. I feel good. My heart rate is higher than it should be, but I’m satisfied.

August 7

The track workout was hard, and I didn’t make my paces on all the repeats. Still, I’m way under what I was running last year at this same juncture in marathon training, so I’m pretty happy.

August 11

It’s BAAAAACK. I wheeze like crazy during our 6 mile marathon pace run. I manage to stick to the pace, but sound like a dying toad. I apologize to Stu, Lauren, Kim, my pace mates, for having to listen to me moan for 44 minutes. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I breathe normally?

August 15

Back to the doctor. This time, I schedule an appointment with the practitioner I’ve seen for years. She’s older, experienced, and I trust her.

She immediately recognizes what I have. It isn’t a virus, and it isn’t a bacterial infection. It’s a non-specific condition called “reactive airway disease,” and it was caused by my lengthy cold in May and June. The airway passages become irritated by coughing and throat clearing, exacerbated by acid reflux. The condition is self-perpetuating, and causes asthma-like symptoms, including bronchial spasm and wheezing. My lungs are functioning well below capacity, which she tests with a little meter that I blow into. She also tests the oxygen levels in my blood with a nifty machine that clips onto my finger—cool. Luckily, my blood is fully oxygenated, so the problem is in the upper airways.

I go home with three different inhalers, acid reflux medication, and an admonition to limit coffee and alcohol. It might take weeks, but she thinks I can recover in time for the marathon in October.

August 16-20

We’re visiting Richard and Gail Ward at their condo in Park City, Utah. I feel like a walking arsenal of breathing apparatuses. I carry two inhalers on my long run, a 23 mile “progression run” starting at 8:00 minute pace, ramping up to 7:15 by the end.

This is difficult to do at elevation, 6800 feet. It’s also hard to do alone in wind and pouring rain. I wear a bike jersey to hold all my accoutrements—inhalers, Gu, TP—and set up a water station so I can loop back around every 8 miles. The scenery is breathtaking, and I gut it out.  Soaked and absolutely depleted, I slog through a brutal cooldown.  When I crawl back into the dry, cozy condo, Gail says she almost went out after me, but stopped worrying when Jeff (my husband) shook his head, smiled, and said “She knows what she’s in for.”

The next day, we climb up two mountains. Richard keeps saying, “it isn’t that far…only about 45 minutes.” Two and a half hours later, he admits he might have been off a bit. I summit the last crest by walking sideways, hanging onto Jeff’s arm like an 80-year old. I’m whimpering, weak and wasted. But we get to take the ski lift down! Wheeeeee!

August 28

I’ve practically given up coffee, and limit myself these days to one small glass of red wine. I’ve been feeling better and better during the hard and long runs, and my training has been going well.

So I’m totally unprepared for what happens this morning.

During a two-miler, my airways close up. I come in on pace in 13:20, but am gasping and wheezing like an angry goose. My mouth is agape, and I’m fire-engine red. Rusty takes one look and says, “this isn’t right.” He modifies the rest of the workout for me, and I’m disconcerted almost to the point of tears, wondering whether I’ll ever beat this lingering lung thang. I walk off the track dejected, thinking of dropping out of the marathon.

Sept. 1

Unfathomably, the condition seems to have all but disappeared. I have a little trouble on the tempo segment of today’s long run, starting to lapse into a voicy wheeze, but I visualize fresh cold mountain air flowing through my lungs, and am able to control my breathing. I have new respect for Nancy, my practitioner, who has told me the condition is partly predicated on psychology: when I panic, the condition worsens. If I relax, it gets better.

Sept. 8

I have the best long run in months. For the tempo section, we do ten miles of “Rusty’s Loop” in reverse, which means 3 x up Turnpike to Cathedral Oaks. I take the hills with alacrity, even speeding up a bit. My average pace for the 10 miles is 7:19. Finally, I feel I can actually run a 3:15 marathon. I’m there.

Sept 11

YOW! I have the best workout EVER! We are supposed to run 3 repeat miles at 6:25, and I DO it! Hurrah! I don’t ever feel like I’m struggling to the point of not making it, and in fact, the last one seems easy. Rusty tells me to quit running behind everyone and get right in the middle, and not to check my watch. So I do that–tuck in behind Jill–and it’s  great. Melissa G. brings up the rear, so we we’re a snug little group. Her breathing is very comforting and confidence instilling. The group gets split up because we have to run through a large pack, but Kim and I hold on and run a 6:24 last mile!

Sept 15

My last long run before the taper, and the best marathon workout I’ve ever had.

The workout was to run two loops of a 4 mile marked course in Goleta at MP, then pick it up for one last loop plus another mile. So, 8 miles at MP, 5 miles at 10-15 secs faster than MP.

I DID IT!!! It was great. During the MP segment, I knew I could run the pace for 26 miles. The faster segment was hard, but I got through it. Here are my splits:

1 7:27

2 7:17

3 7:25

4 7:23

5 7:25

6 7:18

7 7:17

8 7:24

9 7:10

10 7:04

11 7:16

12 7:11

13 7:15

Next: Twin Cities, here I come!